Max Verstappen completed the clean sweep in Montreal on Friday, topping FP2 to follow on from his FP1 success.
Verstappen’s 1:14.1 proved to be the benchmark which the chasing pack could not answer to, and though Ferrari looked to still be in the mix, Charles Leclerc within a tenth of the Red Bull driver’s time, the confirmation of Leclerc’s 10-place grid drop for Sunday’s race has complicated matters greatly.
Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso, meanwhile, teased a strong weekend ahead with their performances, both former winners here looking for further success.
P4 for Seb in FP2! 👏#CanadianGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/ue4R9PhWVX
— Formula 1 (@F1) June 17, 2022
After a busy FP1 in anticipation of rain, the track remained bone dry as the lights went green for FP2.
Extensive work continued though at the Mercedes garage, with “lots of changes” being made to the W13s. Valtteri Bottas was also going nowhere in a hurry, an electronic issue seemingly hampering his Alfa Romeo.
Vettel was quickly noted for an unsafe release as he was waved out into the path of Haas’ Kevin Magnussen, the Dane calling that incident “absolutely crazy” with a post-session investigation quickly confirmed.
Verstappen picked up where he left off, a 1:15.6 on the medium tyres taking him into P1 early on, the Red Bull driver quickly taking half a second off that time before moving into the 1:14s with 10 minutes gone in the session.
Leclerc, meanwhile, had his focus on performing burnouts in the pit lane, Ferrari asking for two, but the F1-75 was not in the mood to allow him to complete even one. In the other Ferrari, Carlos Sainz was reporting the “bottoming and bouncing is worse than FP1…bouncing is very bad, guys”.
He was not alone. “Massive hopping through Turn 9,” Mercedes’ George Russell reported.
An FP1 standout on the medium rubber, Alpine’s Alonso continued to look competitive as he switched to the C5 soft tyres, his opening run bettering the two Ferraris by a tenth and a half before Sainz struck back on the medium C4.
Leclerc was soon into the 1:14s and up to P2 as his soft-tyre run began to deliver the goods.
Vettel had a slide which saw him miss Turn 1, but a potentially more costly one for Gasly followed as he failed to follow the bollard when returning to the track after skipping the final chicane.
Gasly’s AlphaTauri team had already picked up a 300 euros fine after he was caught speeding in the pit lane in FP1. Now a fresh…
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