Formula 1

Raikkonen goes fastest in Free Practice 2 in Canada

4 Mins read
Kimi Raikkonen fastest on the opening day of practice for Canadian Grand Prix Credit: Octane Photographic Ltd.

Kimi Raikkonen finished Free Practice 2 on top of the time sheets for the Canadian Grand Prix, beating Lewis Hamilton in the Montreal fight.

The Scuderia Ferrari driver set an early lap of 1:13.990s to lead the pack, he continued to improve this time to finish the session with a time of 1:12.935s, beating the fastest time from Hamilton in Free Practice 1 by 0.874 seconds.

It was a battle between the Ferrari drivers, Sebastian Vettel set a lap of 1:13.200s on the Ultra Soft Compound to go ahead of Raikkonen, but the Finn did one better and broke the 1 minute 13 seconds barrier with his finishing time. Despite setting a good pace in the opening session at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Hamilton had to settle for second in the second session, after he failed to match the performance of Raikkonen.

With Hamilton finishing just over two tenths behind Raikkonen, behind him was the second Ferrari of Vettel who had a similar run to both Hamilton and Raikkonen. Just like the opening session, there was a lot of drivers spinning out at a certain turn, Turn 6. Vettel was included in these drivers, with him spinning near to the end of the session.

Max Verstappen was able to set an impressive time of 1:13.388s to go fifth fastest, despite a frustrating session as he had problems with the RB13, his session was cut early after the car stopped in Turn 6/7. Smoke was seen pouring out from the rear of the car, with a difficult position to recover the car, a Red Flag was called to safely recover the car.  It is not yet known the reason behind this failure on the car, but it is thought to have been an gearbox issue, the session was restarted with thirteen minutes remaining.

Felipe Massa finished the session in sixth, with a time of 1:14.063s improving on from his time in the FW40 in the first session. Fernando Alonso set an impressive time of 1:14.245s to finish behind Massa in seventh, despite only having thirty minutes remaining in the session after the team used the session to fix the hydraulic leak from the first session. He set an initial lap of 1:15.789s to join the time sheets behind team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne, his second time saw him jump up to sixteenth.

Successful second run for Fernando Alonso in Canada after an early retirement in Free Practice 2 Credit: Octane Photographic Ltd.

As he crossed the line after the chequered flag, he put in a flying lap time of 1:14.245s, after the problems that caused him to end the first session early, it’s good to see him putting in strong times to reach the top ten. Esteban Ocon finished the session in eighth, ahead of his Sahara Force India Formula 1 team-mate Sergio Perez in tenth. Splitting the two Force India drivers, was the Scuderia Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat, who set a time of 1:14.461s, there was some drama for the Russian after he span at Turn 1. Afterwards he reported back to the team, “I locked the rears, I’m ok”.

Just missing out on the top ten, was the first Haas F1 Team driver of Romain Grosjean, who will be glad to see the session finished after experiencing a lot of problems with the VF-17. His session started with him spinning at Turn 6 twice in two laps, he reported back to the team that, “something is not going right” as well as “I’ve got not grip on the rear… something’s wrong”. From here it didn’t get much better for him, as he had a third spin this time at Turn 1 and 2, he started to show his frustration to the American-led team as he said “I’m starting to be a bit fed up”. The Frenchman continued to struggle with the VF-17, as he couldn’t receive the desired performance.

He had a radio rant and gave an unimpressed response, when told that team-mate Kevin Magnussen was on cool down laps then will push, he response “**** him”. Behind Grosjean was the first Renault Sport Formula 1 Team driver of Nico Hulkenberg who improved on his time to finish twelfth, compared to his position of fifteenth in the opening session. The track caused some issues for Hulkenberg, like this morning where he grazed the wall at Turn 9, better than his spins in FP1. Carlos Sainz Jr had a much better session for Toro Rosso, as he finished in thirteenth with a time of 1:14.621s, the Spaniard retired from the opening session after only fifteen minutes, he was unable to set a time.

He was able to recover lost time and complete 43 laps, he was eager for the session as he was the first driver out when the session started. The second Haas driver of Magnussen finished with a time of 1:14.676s to finish ahead of the Red Bull Racing driver of Daniel Ricciardo. This was a frustrating session for the Australian as he spent most of the time in the garage, after some issues were found on the car.

This caused the end of session for Ricciardo, while the engineers investigated what was wrong with the car, with them looking at the left side of the car. Before his retirement, he was in ninth, with a time of 1:15.072s but with technical issues he was unable to return to the track. When Christian Horner was asked by Sky Sports F1 about Ricciardo’s car he said, “It looks like we’ve lost an engine with Daniel”.

Daniel Ricciardo could only complete 8 laps before mechanical issues on the RB13 Credit: Octane Photographic Ltd.

Jolyon Palmer finished the session in sixteenth for Renault, with a time of 1:15.127s improving on from his fastest lap time in the opening session, showing some good progress for Renault. For Lance Stroll his performance went backwards as he could only manage to finish in seventeenth, despite setting a faster lap than this morning, all the drivers around him were improving more. Marcus Ericsson finished ahead of his Sauber F1 Team team-mate for a second session in a row, with a time of 1:15.611s, ahead of the second McLaren Honda Formula 1 of Stoffel Vandoorne.

Like his team-mate Alonso, Vandoorne had a late start to the session as the team scheduled a change for the floor, he set a similar amount of laps as Alonso with him finishing 20 laps for McLaren. The final driver was Pascal Wehrlein with a time of 1:16.308s to finish twentieth.

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