Max Verstappen narrowly headed Charles Leclerc during second practice for Formula 1’s Canadian Grand Prix.
Conditions remained fine and dry throughout the one-hour session on Friday evening as forecasted heavy rain stayed away from the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Verstappen backed up his pace from the earlier session by clocking a time of 1:14.127s.
That left him 0.081s clear of Ferrari driver Leclerc after the Soft tyre runs.
Verstappen currently leads the championship by 21 points after winning four of the last five races.
Carlos Sainz was third for Ferrari, two-tenths behind Verstappen, though the Dutchman’s team-mate put in a subdued run on Softs and wound up only 11th.
Aston Martin displayed strong pace in the hands of Sebastian Vettel.
The squad holds only ninth in the standings but Vettel finished fourth overall, just three tenths down on Verstappen, while Fernando Alonso reinforced his and Alpine’s pace by classifying fifth.
AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly was sixth, ahead of George Russell, who was the fastest Mercedes driver in seventh spot.
Russell’s Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton, a seven-time winner of the event, finished only 13th.
He complained that his W13 was undriveable and pulled into the garage during the final five minutes.
McLaren had Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo in eighth and ninth respectively while Esteban Ocon rounded out a top 10 that was covered by less than a second.
Canadian pair Lance Stroll and Nicholas Latifi were a low-key 12th and 19th respectively, with the Williams driver the slowest of the drivers to set a time.
Valtteri Bottas continued his luckless Fridays in 2022 as a technical issue left him with only three non-timed laps during the session.
His team-mate Zhou Guanyu was 16th overall, behind Haas pair Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher.
Saturday’s final practice session is scheduled for 13:00 local time.
[motorsport_result id=’87389′]
