Lewis Hamilton continued to set the pace during practice for the Canadian Grand Prix, beating Sebastian Vettel by 0.25s in FP2.

Having been quickest in the opening session, Hamilton dipped below last year’s pole position time by 0.2s with a lap of 1:14.212 on ultrasofts. Despite the impressive pace, Hamilton actually saw his advantage trimmed by Ferrari compared to Friday morning, with Vettel’s time also coming on the ultrasoft tyre.

Nico Rosberg was third fastest but over half a second slower than his Mercedes team-mate, with the majority of the deficit coming in the opening two sectors. However, Hamilton’s improvement in pace ensured the next closest challengers – the Red Bull pair of Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo – were the best part of a second off the pace.

Jenson Button was the surprise package of the session, bouncing back from a difficult FP1 to finish seventh quickest. While late to emerge after a power unit change, Button still managed to post a time of 1:15.213, leaving him with an identical time to Valtteri Bottas in sixth but below him on the times having been second to set it.

The 2009 world champion was 1.001s off the pace of Hamilton on a circuit which Button predicted McLaren could be surprisingly strong at. He was also 0.021s ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, although Vettel displayed the true pace of the Ferrari.

Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz completed the top ten ahead of Fernando Alonso, Sergio Perez and Felipe Massa. Massa managed 44 laps in FP2 following his crash this morning which Williams attributed to a DRS fault.

It was a very close session as just 0.4s covered Verstappen in fourth all the way down to Daniil Kvyat in 14th. Much of the focus of the long runs was on tyre life, with Rosberg managing to complete 29 laps on one set of ultrasoft tyres.

While FP1 saw times posted on a variety of different tyre compounds, all of the fastest laps in the second session were set on the purple-marked ultrasoft tyre.

Turn 1 proved tricky for a number of drivers during the afternoon, with Kvyat twice running off track at the opening corner and Romain Grosjean similarly cutting across the run-off area. Both Kvyat and team-mate Carlos Sainz brushed the wall at Turn 5 but neither driver sustained damage.

AS IT HAPPENED: Canadian Grand Prix FP2

Silbermann says … The world’s your lobster

Click Here: New Zealand Rugby Shop

Romain Grosjean column: Racing on two wheels

Chris Medland’s 2016 Canadian Grand Prix preview

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Pos Driver Team Time Laps

01
Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes
1:14.212
43

02
Sebastian Vettel
Ferrari
1:14.469
45

03
Nico Rosberg
Mercedes
1:14.738
46

04
Max Verstappen
Red Bull
1:15.156
29

05
Daniel Ricciardo
Red Bull
1:15.168
43

06
Valtteri Bottas
Williams
1:15.213
46

07
Jenson Button
McLaren
1:15.213
35

08
Kimi Raikkonen
Ferrari
1:15.234
43

09
Nico Hulkenberg
Force India
1:15.321
50

10
Carlos Sainz
Toro Rosso
1:15.410
42

11
Fernando Alonso
McLaren
1:15.450
40

12
Sergio Perez
Force India
1:15.493
47

13
Felipe Massa
Williams
1:15.513
44

14
Daniil Kvyat
Toro Rosso
1:15.559
42

15
Romain Grosjean
Haas
1:16.093
35

16
Kevin Magnussen
Renault
1:16.255
39

17
Felipe Nasr
Sauber
1:16.582
40

18
Esteban Gutierrez
Haas
1:16.591
32

19
Marcus Ericsson
Sauber
1:16.902
51

20
Jolyon Palmer
Renault
1:17.001
48

21
Pascal Wehrlein
Manor
1:17.023
32

22
Rio Haryanto
Manor
1:17.423
49

Categories:

Tags:

Comments are closed