Formula 1

Alonso Beats Hamilton To Top Timesheets In Canada

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Fernando Alonso posted the fastest time in a dry second practice session at Montreal.

In a close session, he narrowly edged out the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton by 0.012 of a second. Romain Grosjean was also rapid in his Lotus and ended the day third fastest.

It was a largely uneventful session compared to earlier in the day, with the track now being completely dry. Focus was therefore on long run pace by most the teams, with the fastest times being posted early on in proceedings.

Sebastian Vettel was the first driver to take to the track with the super soft tyres, and duly went to the top of the time sheets. He had a battle with team mate Mark Webber, with the Australian also going to the top for a short time. Webber and Vettel were classified fourth and seventh fastest by the end of the session.  

Mercedes were once again rapid over a single lap pace, but both Rosberg and Hamilton appeared to struggle on longer runs.  Nico Rosberg was a little off the pace of Hamilton, but was still in the top ten with the fifth fastest time.

There were some casualties in the session, including both Paul di Resta and Jenson Button who had a fuel pick-up and gearbox problem respectively. Kimi Raikkonen’s day was also ended prematurely, with Lotus mechanics soon swarming over the rear of the car after he was brought into the pits.

Further down the times, this morning’s pace setter di Resta was thirteenth, whilst Pastor Maldonado had a better session. Despite some off track excursions, he managed to keep his car out of the barriers this time and was thirteenth.

He wasn’t the only one to go off track during the hour and a half of running, with numerous cars locking up and running wide, particularly at the final chicane.

Force India’s Adrian Sutil took the award for the most spectacular off, as he got it wrong at the final chicane and clattered over the kerbs, before taking flight.

Jules Bianchi also had a much better session than this morning, and was once again the fastest of the “new” team division, down in nineteenth place, just behind the Sauber drivers of Esteban Gutierrez and Nico Hulkenberg.

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