Max Verstappen was fastest in first practice for the Canadian Grand Prix, the Red Bull driver set a 13.193 going four hundredths faster than Alex Albon. Verstappen set his fastest time around forty minutes into the session putting himself ahead of his former teammates with Carlos Sainz slotting into third.
Sainz was comfortably faster than George Russell who was just over a quarter of a second further behind as the Mercedes driver was eight-hundredths faster than his former teammate Lewis Hamilton. It looked like a very promising opening session for the Grove team, although team principal James Vowles admitted to Sky Sports that his team was running a different programme and was therefore further up than it deserved to be.
But it wasn’t a perfect session for Ferrari as Charles Leclerc crashed his Ferrari at Turn Three-Four. Leclerc locked up on entry to the difficult right-left chicane but collected a barrier and destroyed the left-hand side of his car, after he set the fastest time at that time of the session. He admitted over team radio “I locked up and should have gone straight. I thought I could make the corner but I hit the wall.” That brought out a red flag so the Ferrari could be recovered.
Hamilton didn’t have the perfect session either as he spun on his way to finish four-tenths off Verstappen. Isack Hadjar put his Racing Bull sixth, the Frenchman a hundredth behind Hamilton as he went two hundredths faster than the McLaren of Lando Norris.
McLaren are still expected to remain the team to beat, but a low-key opening session was expected allowing them to evaluate upgrades. The main upgrade is to the front wing and suspension, but Oscar Piastri appeared to be doing most of the work leaving him down in fourteenth a second off Verstappen.
The aim is to cure the ‘numb’ feeling in the car’s front axle that has particularly affected Norris this season. But Norris went off track on the exit of Turn One and came close to losing control at the hairpin several times
The session was made more unusual by the almost exclusive use of soft tyres, with only four drivers – Hadjar, Lawson, Gabriel Bortoleto, and Nico Hulkenberg – using the medium compound, with the hard completely absent. Pirelli has allocated it three softest tyres the C4 as the hard, C5 as the medium and C6 as the soft.
McLaren has dominated the opening nine rounds of the season and has rarely been outside of the top positions during any session, but world championship leader Oscar Piastri was only fourteenth with teammate Lando Norris seventh on this occasion. It will be expected that they will return to the top in FP2.
Liam Lawson put his Racing Bull eighth after going just under a tenth behind the McLaren, as he went eight hundredths ahead of Pierre Gasly. Leclerc’s crash left him tenth as he went seven hundredths behind the New Zealander to complete the top ten after ending the session nearly half a tenth faster than Yuki Tsunoda.
Yuki Tsunoda put his Red Bull eleventh, the Japanese driver missing out on the top ten by half a tenth as he went three hundredths faster than Fernando Alonso. The Aston Martin driver going three hundredths ahead of Kimi Antonelli and Piastri, while his teammate Lance Stroll was just five thousandths behind the McLaren.
Gabriel Bortoleto put his Sauber sixteenth going nearly two tenths faster than the Haas’s with Ollie Bearman nearly two hundredths behind, as he was just under nine hundredths faster than his Haas teammate Esteban Ocon. Franco Colapinto was a tenth and three quarters faster than Nico Hulkenberg to complete the field.
