Canadian GP: Hamilton tops FP2, then crashes

Hamilton had already survived two scary moments during the session at Montreal’s infamous final chicane in the dry, first avoiding Romain Grosjean and later bouncing across the kerbs on an aborted quick lap.

Following heavy rain, Mercedes then made an ill-advised decision to send its drivers out on intermediate tyres on a track that had been soaked in an attempt to gather start data.

After he literally sailed into the tyrewall, Hamilton simply reported: “aquaplaned”.

Story of the session

With rain clouds threatening at the start of the 90-minute session there was a mad dash to get on track, with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel taking the supersoft straight away. Once into the 1m16s bracket with 1m16.534s, Vettel lowered his time to 1m16.304s on his third flying lap on the tyres.

Hamilton’s initial soft-tyre run was ruined when he happened across a dawdling Romain Grosjean at the final chicane, the Mercedes taking to the escape road to avoid a potentially nasty collision. He also complained about a vibration on the tyres, and was then called into the pits to switch to supersofts as the rain threat increased.

After a poor first session, Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen was much more competitive in FP2, working his way down to 1m16.310s on the supersoft tyre, just 0.006s slower than Vettel.

Hamilton then went onto the supersoft and suffered his second big moment of the session, when he got the final chicane all wrong and bounced across the big kerbs, fortunately keeping his car out of the so-called ‘Wall of Champions’.

After a cool-down lap, he leapt from 15^th to first with a 1m15.988s, three tenths quicker than the Ferraris. In comparison, Nico Rosberg only produced a 1m16.440s.

Then the rain arrived just over an hour into the session, curtailing the long runs and sending all the cars into the pits.

Pastor Maldonado was best of the rest for Lotus, ahead of Valtteri Bottas (Williams) and the second Lotus of Romain Grosjean.

Felipe Massa was eighth in his Williams, ahead of Daniil Kvyat – whose Red Bull had hit a left-rear brake problem before the rain hit – and teammate Daniel Ricciardo.

The other main incident of the session was Nico Hulkenberg appearing to suffer a left-rear puncture on the soft-compound tyre, claiming that he didn’t hit anything to cause the problem.

Pirelli investigated the issue, and claimed it was a wheelrim issue that caused the tyre to lose pressure, rather than the rubber itself.

Hulkenberg was 11^th, ahead of Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson, Carlos Sainz Jr (Toro Rosso) and Sergio Perez (Force India). Fernando Alonso was 15^th for McLaren, as Jenson Button toiled again and was 2.1s off Hamilton’s pace.

Hamilton's bizarre crash

Both Mercedes performed a crowd-pleasing lap in the rain on intermediates on a soaking-wet surface, apparently to gather start data from a wet start.

But Hamilton, who was first on track, aquaplaned as he approached the hairpin and went straight on into the tyrewall.

Although the impact was slow speed, it was enough to destroy his front wing. And further damage might have been incurred to the rear of his car while it was recovered.

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:15.988		22
2.	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:16.304	+ 0.316	19
3.	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:16.310	+ 0.322	20
4.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:16.440	+ 0.452	22
5.	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus	1:16.600	+ 0.612	15
6.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:16.849	+ 0.861	18
7.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	1:16.864	+ 0.876	15
8.	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:17.041	+ 1.053	19
9.	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull	1:17.092	+ 1.104	10
10.	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:17.111	+ 1.123	16
11.	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:17.120	+ 1.132	15
12.	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:17.261	+ 1.273	17
13.	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Toro Rosso	1:17.318	+ 1.330	23
14.	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:17.367	+ 1.379	20
15.	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:17.627	+ 1.639	21
16.	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:17.657	+ 1.669	23
17.	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:17.751	+ 1.763	21
18.	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:18.135	+ 2.147	20
19.	Roberto Merhi	Manor	1:19.531	+ 3.543	15
20.	Will Stevens	Manor	1:19.734	+ 3.746	13