Hamilton tops F1 Montreal practice

Lewis Hamilton, who has had a nice F1 season so far, was the fastest car in practice today in Quebec.

Lewis Hamilton was fastest in both sessions in Montreal on Friday as Formula One successfully managed to dodge the bad weather.

There were a few drops of rain in the morning session, but the track action was barely affected. However, half an hour after the end of the afternoon session, a huge storm hit the track—stopping support-race action, flooding the paddock and threatening to blow the temporary structures into the adjoining lake.

Hamilton was on the pace from the start, running 30 laps in the first session and 43 in the afternoon, the latter total bettered only by Sebastian Vettel, who did 44.

Fernando Alonso was second fastest, just 0.054 second behind Hamilton, as Ferrari showed clear signs of improvement in one-lap place. That was underlined by the appearance of Felipe Massa in third place.

Vettel was fourth for Red Bull Racing, while there was a surprise in fifth place in the form of Paul Di Resta, who had a good day for Force India. Kamui Kobayashi was sixth for Sauber, ahead of Michael Schumacher, Nico Hulkenberg, Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg.

It was a disastrous day for Button, who had a gearbox oil leak in the morning and ran only 12 laps. The team changed the gearbox, but it didn’t resolve the problem and then all of the rear end of the car had to be changed. The McLaren crew worked all the way through the lunch break and into the second session, and Button finally getting out in the last 20 minutes, squeezing in 14 laps.

Lotus had a low-key day, with Romain Grosjean and Kimi Räikkönen in 14th and 15th.

As ever, the Montreal walls claimed some victims. The morning session was stopped after Caterham’s Heikki Kovalainen went off heavily at the second chicane, while a red flag came in the afternoon after Bruno Senna slid hard into the tires at the Wall of Champions at the last corner, badly damaging his Williams.

More rain is expected for the rest of the weekend.