Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Circuit de Catalunya, 2019

Hamilton almost a second ahead of Ferrari in first practice

2019 Canadian Grand Prix first practice

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Mercedes issued a warning to their rivals in the first practice session for the Canadian Grand Prix, lapping almost a full second quicker than their closest rivals.

On a very dusty track following the recent construction work at the circuit, Hamilton produced a best time of 1’12.767 on the medium compound tyres in the second half of the session. Team mate Valtteri Bottas was only a tenth of a second slower, but had to abandon his final run after a loss of fuel pressure on his new Mercedes power unit.

Charles Leclerc came closest to the Mercedes, but was 0.953 second slower than Hamilton. Max Verstappen also got within a second of the practice pace setter. Illustrating the extent of Mercedes’ advantage and the closeness of the field behind them, Pierre Gasly was nine-tenths of a second slower than his team mate but only 13th.

Several drivers slipped up in the dusty conditions including fifth-placed Sebastian Vettel,who had a quick spin at the turn 10 hairpin.

Alfa Romeo had a mixed session. Kimi Raikkonen gave them some encouragement with the ‘best of the rest’ time , just two-tenths of a second slower than Leclerc’s identically-engined Ferrari. However Antonio Giovinazzi spun into the wall at turn nine, causing a brief Virtual Safety Car period while his damaged C38 was removed.

Four other teams appeared in the top 10. Carlos Sainz Jnr put his McLaren in seventh ahead of Daniel Ricciardo’s Renault, Sergio Perez’s Racing Point and Kevin Magnussen’s Haas.

Nicholas Latifi, making his first appearance in an official F1 session this year, ended the session at the bottom of the times in his Williams.

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Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
144Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’12.76731
277Valtteri BottasMercedes1’12.9140.14725
316Charles LeclercFerrari1’13.7200.95324
433Max VerstappenRed Bull-Honda1’13.7550.98826
55Sebastian VettelFerrari1’13.9051.13828
67Kimi RaikkonenAlfa Romeo-Ferrari1’13.9451.17830
755Carlos Sainz JnrMcLaren-Renault1’13.9731.20634
83Daniel RicciardoRenault1’14.1231.35631
911Sergio PerezRacing Point-Mercedes1’14.1721.40531
1020Kevin MagnussenHaas-Ferrari1’14.2021.43532
114Lando NorrisMcLaren-Renault1’14.2461.47933
1227Nico HulkenbergRenault1’14.4741.70730
1310Pierre GaslyRed Bull-Honda1’14.5701.80327
1499Antonio GiovinazziAlfa Romeo-Ferrari1’14.5821.81517
158Romain GrosjeanHaas-Ferrari1’14.6451.87831
1623Alexander AlbonToro Rosso-Honda1’14.7031.93636
1718Lance StrollRacing Point-Mercedes1’14.8122.04532
1826Daniil KvyatToro Rosso-Honda1’15.3432.57632
1963George RussellWilliams-Mercedes1’15.9893.22229
2040Nicholas LatifiWilliams-Mercedes1’16.1993.43233

First practice visual gaps

Lewis Hamilton – 1’12.767

+0.147 Valtteri Bottas – 1’12.914

+0.953 Charles Leclerc – 1’13.720

+0.988 Max Verstappen – 1’13.755

+1.138 Sebastian Vettel – 1’13.905

+1.178 Kimi Raikkonen – 1’13.945

+1.206 Carlos Sainz Jnr – 1’13.973

+1.356 Daniel Ricciardo – 1’14.123

+1.405 Sergio Perez – 1’14.172

+1.435 Kevin Magnussen – 1’14.202

+1.479 Lando Norris – 1’14.246

+1.707 Nico Hulkenberg – 1’14.474

+1.803 Pierre Gasly – 1’14.570

+1.815 Antonio Giovinazzi – 1’14.582

+1.878 Romain Grosjean – 1’14.645

+1.936 Alexander Albon – 1’14.703

+2.045 Lance Stroll – 1’14.812

+2.576 Daniil Kvyat – 1’15.343

+3.222 George Russell – 1’15.989

+3.432 Nicholas Latifi – 1’16.199

Drivers more then ten seconds off the pace omitted.

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2019 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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32 comments on “Hamilton almost a second ahead of Ferrari in first practice”

  1. Merc and Ham rules baby. Come on guys. Doing it all season with a worsdt engine too. So no one can keep taling like 2014 -2015. Not Mercs fault Ferrari suck.

    1. If boring, uncompetitive races are your thing, so be it, but anyone that is happy about the lack of parity right now is only cheering for the death of the sport. I don’t care who people cheer for but we need to be rooting for closer racing.

      Also, if you think Merc have the worst engine, you’re short a couple billion brain cells.

      1. Too much salt hehe

        1. Really? I read a sober and critical reaction. But what to expect from another fboy.

          1. F1oSaurus (@)
            7th June 2019, 18:52

            @pironitheprovocateur Well this jblank guy does nothing but whine because he doesn;t want to see Hamilton winning. How is that either fair or balanced?

            The people he should be complaining about are his idols who are the ones dropping the ball.

          2. Where is it written that we’re required to be fair or balanced? Are you?

    2. Could you maybe use the human speech next time?

  2. It’s hardly surprising. For all the talk about top speeds, handling through the twisty bits is the key to success at most circuits.

    I remember Ferrari having a straight line speed advantage over Red Bull from 2010 through 2013. It didn’t give them an edge in Montreal (or most circuits) then, so I don’t see why it would now.

  3. Looks like it might be another weekend where whichever Merc leads into turn 1 of lap 1 wins the race. So boring.

    1. When did you start watching F1? This is what has usually happened for closing in on 70 years and 1001 races.

      1. JB – There are nine other teams. You’d think one or two of them could figure out a way to beat Mercedes. Don’t blame Mercedes for the rest’s incompetence.

      2. @darryn, he claims to have begun watching F1 in 2007, according to his profile, although at times he gives an impression that he began more recently than that.

        1. F1oSaurus (@)
          7th June 2019, 18:57

          The poor guy just hates Hamilton.

          I guess it must hurt when Hamilton annihilated Vettel even in 2018 when Ferrari had the better car. Plus 2017 when Ferrari and Mercedes were on par.

          Although I agree that it would have been nicer if it was decided by battles on track rather than by Vettel constantly blundering races away.

          1. Hurt? No. Decrease enjoyment? Yes. I’m no Ferrari or Vettel fan, I’m a McLaren fan so it’s not like I’m one of these bandwagon fans that has to root for a winner. Merc has been the beneficiary of quite a bit of assistance from Pirelli, it would seem. Merc, for whatever reason, seem immune from the tire temperature issues that seem to impact all the other teams. I find that……odd.

            Ultimately, what I want is good, close competitive racing. I don’t want races decided in turn 1 of lap 1 and if people are satisfied with that, I really struggle to understand how they find races enjoyable.

      3. 2007. I don’t care about what happened in the past, what people want and what Liberty wants, is closer racing with more parity and an end to domination. You guys must be the most easily amused people in the world because how you could be satisfied with the state of these races is beyond me.

  4. Most probably Ferrari turned down their engine. How else would Kimmi do almost the same time as Seb, and only 2 tenth down on Lec?

    1. How can we be sure that Mercedes didn’t? *gasp*

  5. Adam (@rocketpanda)
    7th June 2019, 17:06

    I figure that Ferrari/Red Bull weren’t really pushing? At least I hope they weren’t. Even if they were the gap between the two Mercedes and… well everyone else is depressing. Is it realistic to expect anything other than a Mercedes 1-2 in qualifying and the race?

    1. I expected a Merc 1-2 in Canada 2014, sometimes stuff happens.

  6. It looked like Ferarri treated this session as an exercise in running in the medium tyres, given that they ran through 6 sets each. Possibly a tyre management strategy with a spinkling of sand bagging.

    Having said that Mercedes were leaving plenty of margin out there so basically we know nothing.. :)

  7. Am I correct in believing that Racing Point and Williams will have the new Merc power unit as well? Whenever they decide to use a new PU, that is. Is that at this race?

    1. @scalextric – You are correct – all 6 cars are going to run the “phase 2” PU this weekend: https://www.racefans.net/2019/06/06/all-mercedes-teams-to-run-new-phase-2-power-unit/

  8. So glad i didn’t pay for that sky subscription!

    1. If you got sky though you would have been able to watch Chernobyl though. Which was bloody brilliant.

      1. Ads Lee, brilliant to all, that is, except to the current Russian government, which is why Russia’s national broadcaster has announced their own plans to promote an “alternative view” – with the intention of whitewashing the Soviet authorities and spreading a conspiracy theory that the CIA blew up Chernobyl instead.

  9. Neil (@neilosjames)
    7th June 2019, 17:29

    Breathing a bit of life into the free practice world championship…

  10. I can only hope the new Mercedes engine is not reliable, which Bottas experienced fuel pressure issue, hope they have to turn down their engine for reliability…

    1. it is mercedes you are talking about. it’s not realistic to expect them to put to use a still unreliable engine. they are not ferrari.

  11. Toto : Yah, we were lying when we said we were unsure about our performance. Again.

  12. Hamilton/Mercedes needs miracle to win against the Ferrari’s who are sandbagging big time!

    1. @mysticus it’s proven, Ferrari WERE ahead now!

Comments are closed.