Max Verstappen, Red Bull, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, 2018

Verstappen edges Hamilton in red-flagged session

2018 Canadian Grand Prix first practice

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Max Verstappen led the first practice session for the Canadian Grand Prix before encountering a suspension problem on his Red Bull. However the fault was quickly rectified, allowing Verstappen to return to the track having lost little time.

He edged Lewis Hamilton by less than a tenth of a second at the top of the times while Daniel Ricciardo made it two Red Bulls inside the top three.

The highest Ferrari was fourth, but very little separated the front-runners. Sebastian Vettel was within three-tenths of a second of Verstappen’s time. All of the top six were within half a second of each other.

Fernando Alonso gave McLaren some encouragement with a midfield-leading time which was less than 0.6 seconds slower than Verstappen’s Red Bull. Team mate Stoffel Vandoorne was ninth after McLaren swapped floors on his car as part of a scheduled test.

Nico Hulkenberg caused a lengthy disruption early in the session when his Renault came to a stop at the exit of the old pits hairpin with a loss of drive. Although he was able to turn his car off and then restart it using the MGU-K, he still couldn’t find a gear and his session was over.

Practice was stopped while Hulkenberg’s car was recovered. As a result, drivers were given an extra 11 minutes before they had to hand back their first sets of tyres.

Nicholas Latifi, making his first appearance in an official F1 session, was slowest among those who set times. However unlike fellow home driver Lance Stroll he managed to keep his car out of the barriers: Stroll limped in with a right-rear puncture after hitting the Wall of Champions.

Sergey Sirotkin emulated his team mate by hitting another wall in the final minutes of the session. The newcomer to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve spun into a TecPro barrier at turn six.

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Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
133Max VerstappenRed Bull-TAG Heuer1’13.30226
244Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’13.3900.08829
33Daniel RicciardoRed Bull-TAG Heuer1’13.5180.21624
45Sebastian VettelFerrari1’13.5740.27219
577Valtteri BottasMercedes1’13.6170.31531
67Kimi RaikkonenFerrari1’13.7270.42528
714Fernando AlonsoMcLaren-Renault1’13.9000.59827
855Carlos Sainz JnrRenault1’14.1160.81424
92Stoffel VandoorneMcLaren-Renault1’14.3111.00919
1010Pierre GaslyToro Rosso-Honda1’15.0041.70231
1131Esteban OconForce India-Mercedes1’15.0711.76929
128Romain GrosjeanHaas-Ferrari1’15.1191.81721
139Marcus EricssonSauber-Ferrari1’15.3862.08430
1416Charles LeclercSauber-Ferrari1’15.4392.13730
1520Kevin MagnussenHaas-Ferrari1’15.5792.27721
1628Brendon HartleyToro Rosso-Honda1’15.7562.45438
1735Sergey SirotkinWilliams-Mercedes1’15.7682.46630
1818Lance StrollWilliams-Mercedes1’16.2592.95716
1934Nicholas LatifiForce India-Mercedes1’17.1453.84328
2027Nico HulkenbergRenault

First practice visual gaps

Max Verstappen – 1’13.302

+0.088 Lewis Hamilton – 1’13.390

+0.216 Daniel Ricciardo – 1’13.518

+0.272 Sebastian Vettel – 1’13.574

+0.315 Valtteri Bottas – 1’13.617

+0.425 Kimi Raikkonen – 1’13.727

+0.598 Fernando Alonso – 1’13.900

+0.814 Carlos Sainz Jnr – 1’14.116

+1.009 Stoffel Vandoorne – 1’14.311

+1.702 Pierre Gasly – 1’15.004

+1.769 Esteban Ocon – 1’15.071

+1.817 Romain Grosjean – 1’15.119

+2.084 Marcus Ericsson – 1’15.386

+2.137 Charles Leclerc – 1’15.439

+2.277 Kevin Magnussen – 1’15.579

+2.454 Brendon Hartley – 1’15.756

+2.466 Sergey Sirotkin – 1’15.768

+2.957 Lance Stroll – 1’16.259

+3.843 Nicholas Latifi – 1’17.145

Drivers more then ten seconds off the pace omitted.

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2018 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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35 comments on “Verstappen edges Hamilton in red-flagged session”

  1. Stroll hit the wall of champions as a non-champion similar to Button who did the same in 2005 over four years before winning the WDC.

    1. Stroll 2022 World Champion confirmed

    2. Unfortunately for Stroll, I think this is as close he can be of a f1 champion, and in 4 years he will not be one.

      1. Agreed – while the car is undoubtedly garbage, Stroll is clearly being outperformed by Sirotkin. And 4% off the pace… That’s a large number in F1!

        1. The poor ground hog was the biggest casualty if P2

  2. Vettel fan 17 (@)
    8th June 2018, 16:45

    Either the Hypersoft isn’t much of a step up from the Ultrasoft, or both Red Bull and Ferrari driverseased up their laps, because roughly Alonso may be quicker then all of them taking estimated tyre pace differences into account

    1. Hypersoft seemed to be as bad as it was in Monaco. I expect most people to race on the ultras or supersofts.

      1. Have Pirelli said what the expected time-delta is between the Hyper and the Ultra?

        1. Pirelli don’t understand their tyres, better not to ask

          1. Soooooo true!

      2. And whats surprising is other mercs everyone else doesnt have too many sets of hardest and intermediate compounds. Which means these teams will be running a conservative strategy which can easily be destroyed by a Safety car or VSC.

  3. *Please don’t bottle it in FP3, please don’t bottle it in FP3*

  4. One more error and Verstappen will be fastest up the internet forums lynching pole.

    1. People actually want to see him fail now, just to see him fall flat on his face and laugh about it…

      I personally have been very critical of him this season (his performance, merits criticism this year) but I start to feel for him now, as I think this Verstappen-bashing is going too far. All sorts of people like Stewart are using Max to stay relevant in the news cycles and people at home, being keyboard warriors, using Max to somehow feel better about themselves or something. Smh.

      1. Do you not perhaps think that also his arrogant attitude warrants some of the criticism? He need to make some changes but all he ever says is that he won’t change his style of racing. How about “My driving style has got me where I am today” and exactly where is that I would like someone to ask him. And “I think that all these questions about my accidents are becoming boring” And the next person to ask me about my accidents I might head butt them. Personally I think that he deserves most of the criticism that he is getting. Arrogant child springs to my mind and I have no respect at all for people like that and he is no longer a rookie and should have developed better racecraft by now. Initially I thought that here is a multiple world champion in the making and now I think that I was wrong.

        1. If he does end up getting a couple of victories (which he likely will, it’s high time), he will be praised for saying these very words, mind.

        2. Did you ever think he is not that articulate in English?

          He says he isn’t changing his process, but he is changing and fine tuning his race skills. His process of getting better is what got him in F1. Even in the latest press conference he said he made to many errors… What else can you keep saying about it.

          If I ask you ten times in a row what the color of grass is, it would get boring too…

          And the real insights why he is making those faults is talked about behind closed doors at Redbull.

          1. Did you ever think he is not that articulate in English? – Nothing to do with it. How is it, for example, harder to say “I’ll change my approach”, than “I won’t change my approach”??

            He says he isn’t changing his process, but he is changing and fine tuning his race skills. – So wait, he says the exact opposite of what’s he actually doing??

            And the real insights why he is making those faults is talked about behind closed doors at Redbull. – Yet here you are giving us all kinds of weird, implausible insights.

            Sounds to me you’re just making up excuses for him (which he himself doesn’t even do).. again. Like all the other FBoys. I reckon Max is proficient enough in English to express himself in a press conference, so let him do the talking (and driving) and don’t try to fill up the blanks, your blanks.

        3. @angie
          ‘Arrogant child springs to my mind’

          Refreshing change from PR drones springs to my mind. The Dutch are very direct people by the way, never to be confused with arrogant, their style and mannerisms are better understood in Dutch.

          1. The Dutch are very direct people by the way (…) their style and mannerisms are better understood in Dutch.

            As a Dutch person I can confirm this, but even for Dutch standards, I think he’s a bit too self-confident. I guess confidence is a good thing, but what I mean is he could be a bit more self-critical (i.e. admitting he get’s a bit too unpatient at times etc.) and a bit less dismissive towards other people (not only journalist but also Vettel last year and Raikkonen before that).

            Having said that he is not a PR drone like so many others are, and that is a good thing.

          2. @ Big Joe I am South African and Afrikaans is very close to Dutch in a lot of respects in fact it has often been referred to as “kitchen dutch” so I think that I have a fairly good handle on the Dutch but thanks for the heads up.

          3. @jeffreyj I think the amount that Max is self-critical is for Max to decide for himself. He should not be expected to verbalize to the world his every thought on his season, and has said enough that we get the idea. Now let’s just let him concentrate on the task at hand, undistracted, not that he has a problem keeping distractions from being an issue.

  5. That’s a small head butt for all his critics.

    Keep going, Max!

    1. Hardly. Topping a meaningless session when both Mercedes and Ferrari are running their engines on such low performance. If he takes pole or just manages not to crash in qualifying or a race I’ll be more impressed.

  6. A couple of decent results and a rain race ….. most will be forgotten and what isn’t, will be forgiven.
    If Red Bull gave him the boot, which they won’t, how many other teams would be scrambling to sign him up.?? Lots.
    Mind you, he may have to learn to speak Italian.

  7. New to me. Mgu-k still requires a gear box.
    How does the energy recovery work then? Also via gear box?

    1. @Coldfly MGU- K (kinetic) is basically an electric motor/generator attached to the engine. The engine turns the generator which charges the battery (energy store) When the driver uses the energy store the the generator becomes an electric motor which then helps to turn the engine thereby adding to the power output on the ice.
      hope that helps

      1. Thanks @angie.
        I’m just surprised it is located before the gearbox (crankshaft) rather than after the gearbox (driveshaft, although this can also be ungeared).
        An electric motor normally doesn’t need gearing.

        1. @ Coldfly There are hybrid road cars with exactly the setup that you have described. On an F1 car the MGU-H is at the opposite end to the gearbox. On some hybrids it’s located between the engine and the gearbox. I guess it just depends on that particular engineers philosophy of what he thinks is best.

          1. @angie
            The H is between the turbine and compressor

          2. Thanks @angie (I know you mean K)

          3. @Coldfly Thanks, I did mean K but that doesn’t mean that I don’t need correcting for my momentary brain fade. Get it right my Dad always used to say.

          4. @ Big Joe, “The H is between the turbine and compressor” On the Mercedes it definitely is but I believe that on the Renault and the Ferrari it is attached directly to the turbocharger. I am not sure about the Honda but I think that it is also directly on the turbocharger. Please correct me if I am wrong. Thanks

  8. Anyone done any long runs yet? Any idea of race pace yet?

Comments are closed.