After an unceremonious exchange with the media in the 2018 Canadian Grand Prix’s press conference, Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen found a way to channel his anger on track to top the first practice session from Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo.
First 50 minutes:
The McLaren pair of Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne provisionally set the pace in the first part of the FP1 session when a red flag courtesy of a stricken Renault of Nico Hulkenberg hampered the proceedings.
Due to the interruption, the FIA extended the time for the drivers to use the first set of Pirelli tyres which eventually saw Hamilton top the part ahead of teammate Valtteri Bottas and Alonso rounding out the Top 3 – the Spaniard running the hypersoft tyres.
Rest of the session:
The second part in the FP1 session was a busy one with drivers trying to get through their programme and to recover the lost time. It was Verstappen topping the timesheet with a time of 1m13.302s to displace Hamilton who did a 1m13.390s.
The Mercedes driver is using the older engine while the Red Bull is on the upgraded Renault power unit – as were all the other Renault-powered outfits. Monaco Grand Prix winner Ricciardo (1m13.518s) was third ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel (1m13.574s).
In fourth was Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas (1m13.617s) from Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen (1m13.727s). With the troubles the German team has had with the hypersoft tyres, both the drivers chose not to run those in FP1.
Behind the Top 6, it was Alonso (1m13.900s) in seventh followed by Renault’s Carlos Sainz (1m14.116s) in a McLaren sandwich with Stoffel Vandoorne (1m14.311s) behind as Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly (1m15.004s) completed the Top 10.
Force India’s Esteban Ocon (1m15.071s) finished 11th from Haas’ Romain Grosjean (1m15.119s) and Sauber pair of Marcus Ericsson (1m15.386s) and Charles Leclerc (1m15.439s), who had the second Haas of Kevin Magnussen (1m15.579s) behind them.
The second Toro Rosso of Brendon Hartley (1m15.756s) was 16th with the Italian outfit having an upgraded power unit from Honda. Next up were Williams pair of Sergey Sirotkin (1m15.786s) and Lance Stroll (1m16.259s).
Both the drivers had an off moment with the Russian spinning at Turn 5 damaging his rear, while the Canadian touched the ‘Wall of Champions’ earlier in the session to suffer a right rear puncture.
Another home star, Nicholas Latifi (1m15.745s) in his first-ever FP1 session for Force India finished 19th while Hulkenberg was 20th with no time set.