McLaren’s Lando Norris utilised drying conditions at the end to go quickest during a first practice hour at Formula 1’s Canadian Grand Prix which was heavily delayed.
While the drivers and teams arrived at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve with blue skies overhead, darkness descended and a rain deluge with hailstones soon materialised.
The adverse conditions cast doubt over whether FP1 could even get cancelled, but no such call was forthcoming and the one-hour session commenced on schedule.
But although the timer would begin ticking down, the FIA announced that the pit lane exit would remain closed and cars would not be allowed to venture out on track.
A 22-minute period would transpire until the red light went to green and Lewis Hamilton, who has a record-equalling six wins in Montreal, exited his Mercedes garage.
The Sauber drivers, the Haas pairing and McLaren’s Lando Norris accompanied the seven-time champion, with both the Intermediate and Wet compounds being used.
Just under 30 minutes remained when Zhou Guanyu had a snap at Turn 5 and tagged the barrier, causing damage to his suspension that would bring out the red flag.
However, the stoppage would not be substantial and several drivers came back out on the Intermediates with the sun out and the track becoming drier at a rapid rate.
Charles Leclerc fronted a queue that opted to sample the slicks inside the last five minutes and the times would improve in the closing stages to see Norris move top.
The McLaren driver posted a 1:24.435s to be 0.328 seconds quicker than Carlos Sainz, who was five-tenths faster than his Ferrari team-mate Leclerc in third position.
Hamilton wound up fourth in the lead Mercedes as Max Verstappen rounded out the top five for Red Bull, with Oscar Piastri sixth and Pierre Gasly up in seventh spot.
Valtteri Bottas was sat third at one stage on the Intermediates but dropped back to eighth, with Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Mercedes’ George Russell ninth and 10th.
Daniel Ricciardo headed RB team-mate Yuki Tsunoda in the positions outside the top 10, with Kevin Magnussen leading Nico Hulkenberg in the Haas intra-team fight.
Williams’ Logan Sargeant split the two Aston Martins in the order as Fernando Alonso was 15th and Lance Stroll 17th, with Zhou’s participation having been curtailed.
Jack Doohan also did not set a representative time on his practice appearance for Alpine, with Alex Albon also not electing to complete more than a single lap in last.
