Canadians revved up at Montreal F1

MONTREAL • Max Verstappen looked in too good of a mood to head butt anyone.

The Red Bull driver turned in the quickest laps in both practice runs at the Canadian Grand Prix on Friday, when Lance Stroll of Montreal and Nicholas Latifi of Toronto gave fans a rare look at two Canadians on the track at once.

A day earlier, Verstappen was so fed up with questions over his incident-filled season that he vowed to head butt the next person to ask him about his frequent crashes. Then he turned in the leading performance in two 90-minute practice sessions at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

“It’s a positive start to the weekend,” the Dutchman said. “The car was working really well.”

Verstappen had the day’s quickest lap in the afternoon session of one minute 12.198 seconds on the 4.361-kilometre track after leading the morning session at 1:13.302. He edged Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari at 1:12.320.

Stroll, in his second season with Williams, posted the 19th fastest time of 1:14.703, outpacing only his Russian teammate Sergey Sirotkin.

Latifi, the Force India reserve driver, ran only in the first of two 90-minute practice sessions before handing the pink car back to regular driver Sergio Perez of Mexico. His best lap was the slowest in the field at 1:17.145, but he was there just to get the feel of an F1 car and help the team test it on two types of tires.

Latifi ran 28 laps. Like many drivers, he had a brief slip off the track 50 minutes in at a chicane on the back side of the course. “It was a special feeling pulling out of pit lane — I had a big smile on my face,” the 22-year-old said. “It was especially nice on my last lap to see all the Canadian flags waving to me.”

Stroll touched a wall in the morning session, forcing a stop for repairs, but was back out for a full run in the afternoon. “A lot of laps, good information that’s been absorbed,” the 19-year-old said.

Stroll is the first Canadian in F1 since 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve of St-JeanSur-Richelieu, Que., left the series in 2006. Latifi has a shot at being the next if he gets enough points in the F2 series to earn his superlicence.