Home F1 Canadian GP: Hamilton leads Russell in extended wet-ending FP2

Canadian GP: Hamilton leads Russell in extended wet-ending FP2

16/06/2023

Lewis Hamilton headed Mercedes teammate George Russell in extended FP2 of F1 Canadian GP, with Carlos Sainz in third.

It was a long fix for the local administration with the CCTV running between FP1 and FP2, but they managed to do so just ahead of the start of the session with a back-up in place too. As was said, they started 30 minutes earlier to make it a 1.5 hours of running.

It was a clean start to FP2 of F1 Canadian GP, with the first stoppage coming 30 minutes into the running when Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg came to a halt on the main straight due to lost engine. The marshals had to douse the hot car blowing smoke.

There was another red flag few minutes after the re-start with Alpine asking Esteban Ocon to stop on track due to a suspected water leak issue. With rain predicted towards the end of the session, Mercedes did kept it late to go for their quickest lap.

It meant Lewis Hamilton was fastest in FP2 of F1 Canadian GP by 0.027s from teammate George Russell, after setting 1m13.718s lap. They led Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in third, with his teammate Charles Leclerc in fifth behind Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was sixth where he set his best time a bit early on in the running just like teammate Sergio Perez who was eighth behind Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas. The Finn set a good time with Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll in ninth.

Alpine’s Pierre Gasly was 10th from leading McLaren of Oscar Piastri who clipped the wall at the final corner but managed to continue on well. Haas’ Kevin Magnussen was 12th from McLaren’s Lando Norris, with Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu in 15th.

He led the two AlphaTauri drivers Yuki Tsunoda and Nyck de Vries, where the Japanese had a Turn 1 moment along with Williams’ Alexander Albon in 18th. The two were first to take evasive action on the run-off at Turn 1-2 with the new wall put up.

It will be tricky rejoin for qualifying and the race ahead. Alpine’s Ocon, meanwhile, was 18th from Williams’ Logan Sargeant and Haas’ Hulkenberg. There were few off moments in the final corner, while the FP2 end saw loads of rain for intermediate tyres. There were couple of unsafe releases too.