Verstappen tops Canada practice
UNDER-FIRE Dutchman Max Verstappen topped the times for Red Bull in Friday morning’s action-packed opening free practice session for this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix.
Twenty-four hours after his impetuous performance at a pre-race news briefing, in which he threatened to “head-butt” his inquisitors, the young Dutchman produced a near-faultless answer to his critics.
Verstappen clocked a best lap in one minute, 13.302 seconds, outpacing nearest rival, championship leader and defending four-time champion Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes by 0.088 seconds.
His Red Bull teammate Daniel Ricciardo, victorious in Monaco two weeks ago, was third fastest ahead of four-time champion Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari and Finn Valtteri Bottas, who was fifth in the second Mercedes.
Another Finn, Kimi Raikkonen was sixth in the second Ferrari ahead of two-time champion Fernando Alonso of McLaren and fellow Spaniard Carlos Sainz of Renault.
The session was punctuated by incidents as the drivers came to terms with a slippery circuit, several touching or hitting the barriers.
Both Williams drivers hit the wall, Canadian Lance Stroll suffering a puncture, while in an earlier incident Renault’s German driver Nico Hulkenberg came to a halt with an engine failure on track.
This resulted in a 12-minute red-flagged delay before the action resumed. Hulkenberg was unable to complete a timed lap in the session.
Lewis Hamilton hopes his Mercedes team have overcome the problems they had in Monaco with the “hypersoft” tyre ahead of this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix.
The e world championship leader and defending four-time champion said yesterday that he believed the issues experienced in Monte Carlo were a “one-off ” and were now understood. “I think Monaco was a one-off,” said Hamilton. “We’ve understood where and why our tyres didn’t last and there’s some fundamental things we’ve changed on the car which affected it. “So I think we have a much better understanding coming into this weekend.” The team’s problems with the tyres meant they were out-qualified and Hamilton lined up only third on the grid behind Australian Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull and title rival four-time champion German Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari. Hamilton had problems in the race and abandoned using the “hyper-softs” earlier than expected, switching to the “super-softs” to reach the finish. He added: “This is usually a track where warm-up is difficult and the target is always moving, all the time. We got it wrong the last weekend and in hindsight we know that and could have done something different. Now we will.” Ricciardo said he felt confident of running well using the “hyper-softs” hyper softs again in Montreal on the powerhungry Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. He said: “We were good on the hypersofts in Monaco and it gives us a chance to do well again this weekend. This circuit could suit us better than a few of the others coming up.” — SuperSport