No headbutts, and Verstappen has edge on Hamilton

Dutchman controls opening practice

Max Verstappen edged out championship leader Lewis Hamilton in opening practice for the Canadian Grand Prix yesterday.

Verstappen had threatened to headbutt someone if he continued to be quizzed about his error-prone campaign, but the 20-year-old Dutchman allowed his driving to do the talking in the first running of the weekend at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve.

Verstappen set a best lap of one minute and 13.302 seconds to finish clear of Hamilton, with Daniel Ricciardo third in the other Red Bull.

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, who trails Hamilton by 14 points in the championship race, was fourth.

Hamilton admitted on Thursday he fears he may not be in contention for the victory this weekend after his Mercedes team failed to bring a scheduled engine update with them to North America.

It means Hamilton, 33, is set to be down on power, while continuing with an engine that he has used at every round since the opening rubber in Australia. In contrast, Vettel has been afforded the luxury of a fresh Ferrari power unit.

But Hamilton, who is chasing a recordequalling seventh win in Montreal, was just nine hundredths of a second down on Verstappen, and ahead of his title rival Vettel.

Vettel, without a win from his last four outings, was 0.272secs behind Verstappen. Valtteri Bottas finished fifth for Mercedes, one place ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen.

Fernando Alonso is competing in his 300th grand prix this weekend, and the two-time world champion placed as the best of the rest.

The 36-year-old Spaniard was just over half-a-second off the pace in seventh with his McLaren team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne ninth.