Hamilton leads the way in final practice

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Lewis Hamilton was fastest ahead of qualifying

Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of the Canadian Grand Prix weekend so far in the final practice session ahead of qualifying.

Overnight rain mean the track conditions were once again low-grip and slippery.

Very few cars went out to begin with – just five drivers setting times in the first 25 minutes. But by the halfway point of the session most of the cars were on track and lap times began to fall very quickly.

The McLarens led the way, with Hamilton and Jenson Button exchanging fastest times. Hamilton eventually cemented his superiority with a 1’16.259, four-tenths quicker than his team mate.

A second lull followed as the drivers prepared for final efforts on the super-soft tyres. With 23 cars on-track at once, several hit traffic and struggled to improve.

Others hit something more solid – Montreal’s unforgiving walls. Felipe Massa clipped one, a great flash of sparks flying up from the front of his Ferrari as he touched the concrete at turn seven.

Hamilton also brushed the barriers at turn four on his final effort – but not before he’d improved his best time by two tenths of a second. Pedro de la Rosa also had a near miss at the corner late in the session.

Further improvements were prevented by Lucas di Grassi, who lost his Virgin under braking for L’Epingle, coming to a rest in the gravel trap. He had earlier set the fastest time through the speed trap, the VR-01 hitting 324kph, most likely thanks to getting a tow from a rival.

Nico Rosberg did little running as his Mercedes was hit by a clutch problem. And Karun Chandhok missed most of the session as his HRT failed on the way out of the pits as practice began.

Pos.CarDriverCarBest lapLaps
12Lewis HamiltonMcLaren-Mercedes1’16.05815
26Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’16.3400.28216
38Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’16.4950.43719
43Michael SchumacherMercedes1’16.5360.47815
55Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’16.5820.52416
611Robert KubicaRenault1’16.6530.59518
714Adrian SutilForce India-Mercedes1’16.6730.61515
81Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’16.6990.64116
915Vitantonio LiuzziForce India-Mercedes1’16.8140.75615
1012Vitaly PetrovRenault1’16.9820.92418
1110Nico HulkenbergWilliams-Cosworth1’17.1211.06316
127Felipe MassaFerrari1’17.2311.17316
1317Jaime AlguersuariToro Rosso-Ferrari1’17.3311.27322
1423Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari1’17.5481.4920
1522Pedro de la RosaSauber-Ferrari1’17.6091.55116
1616Sebastien BuemiToro Rosso-Ferrari1’17.6331.57521
179Rubens BarrichelloWilliams-Cosworth1’17.7891.73118
184Nico RosbergMercedes1’17.9791.9214
1918Jarno TrulliLotus-Cosworth1’19.0132.95515
2019Heikki KovalainenLotus-Cosworth1’19.4473.38916
2124Timo GlockVirgin-Cosworth1’19.5363.47822
2225Lucas di GrassiVirgin-Cosworth1’19.8443.78620
2321Bruno SennaHRT-Cosworth1’20.3254.26718
2420Karun ChandhokHRT-CosworthNo time1
PosDriverCarFP1FP2FP3Total laps
1Lewis HamiltonMcLaren-Mercedes1’18.3521’17.5221’16.05863
2Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’19.6091’17.2731’16.34075
3Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’18.7261’16.9631’16.49575
4Michael SchumacherMercedes1’18.2851’17.6881’16.53668
5Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’18.5491’16.8771’16.58275
6Robert KubicaRenault1’18.6621’17.5291’16.65373
7Adrian SutilForce India-Mercedes1’19.3731’17.4151’16.67355
8Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’18.1271’17.9611’16.69972
9Vitantonio LiuzziForce India-Mercedes1’19.0971’17.9031’16.81475
10Vitaly PetrovRenault1’19.5491’18.5821’16.98282
11Nico HulkenbergWilliams-Cosworth1’19.2821’18.4471’17.12188
12Nico RosbergMercedes1’18.3561’17.1511’17.97961
13Felipe MassaFerrari1’19.5111’17.4011’17.23170
14Jaime AlguersuariToro Rosso-Ferrari1’20.8231’19.2741’17.33191
15Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari1’20.1861’19.1421’17.54891
16Pedro de la RosaSauber-Ferrari1’20.5841’18.6581’17.60971
17Sebastien BuemiToro Rosso-Ferrari1’20.3201’19.1681’17.63380
18Rubens BarrichelloWilliams-Cosworth1’19.3131’18.3851’17.78964
19Jarno TrulliLotus-Cosworth1’22.5431’21.3461’19.01338
20Heikki KovalainenLotus-Cosworth1’21.8691’19.9691’19.44775
21Timo GlockVirgin-Cosworth1’22.7131’21.4881’19.53667
22Lucas di GrassiVirgin-Cosworth1’21.5771’19.84454
23Bruno SennaHRT-Cosworth1’22.7011’21.0971’20.32577
24Karun ChandhokHRT-Cosworth1’21.9771’20.87957

2010 Canadian Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    5 comments on “Hamilton leads the way in final practice”

    1. Lotus is closer to the fastest time, but both STR guys have improved a lot and Trulli is now 1.2 sec. behind the slowest experienced team car (leaving Rosberg out as he did only 4 laps).

      Virgin also got closer today, seems like they have found a way to go with the setup after struggling yesterday.

    2. Does anyone have any interesting info on the renault front and rear wings? They look very curved and abnormal and look like they’re running much thinner than the other teams (hence string straight line speed?)

    3. Bah. Oversleept this morning. On top of everything thought had until Quali to give our predictions so missed that to. Normally I do my predictions after FP2 since FP3 is in middle of the night and Quali happens at 7am. Ohh well.. Interesting to see very mixed up front. Top 6 got 5 different teams only Red Bull managed to be the one team with their two drivers in top 6. Will Mark or Vettel be able to get one of those super qualifying laps they become known to pull of this year or will we finally see another team on pole? Ham or Alo looks good for pole but Webber seems very fast to. STR jumped forward nicely. Hulkeberg might manage for first time out qualify his team mate this season.
      Ros seemed to struggle today after being faster then his team mate yesterday.
      This quali is going to be very interesting..

      1. actually it’s not that rosberg struggled today.. his car had clutch problems, hence why he only completed 4 laps in FP3

    4. Well, well. Look at the speed traps. Hamilton back down again from P3 into midpack speeds, and back on top of the timesheets. Relative to RBR, only losing a couple tenths in S1, even in S2, and making it back in S3. I think VMM is a bit caught out that they can’t keep up woth RBR in the slow bits here and thus cannot apply the F-duct fully. Nonetheless, they remain very competitive.

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