Red Bull’s Max Verstappen fastest in Canadian Grand Prix practice

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Formula One revved up for the first Canadian Grand Prix since 2019 with Max Verstappen setting the practice pace for Red Bull and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz having a close encounter with a groundhog on Friday.

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World championship leader Verstappen was fastest in both sessions on Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, setting a time of one minute, 15.158 seconds, in a sunny first and 1:14.127 in the second that ended just before a downpour.

Sainz was second in the opening session, lapping 0.246 slower than the Dutch driver, but teammate Charles Leclerc pushed him down to third in the later session.

Double world champion Fernando Alonso was third and fifth, respectively, for Renault-owned Alpine with Sebastian Vettel fourth in practice two.

Montreal’s Lance Stroll was 12th in his Astin Martin with a fastest time of 1:15.396, while fellow Montrealer Nicholas Latifi was 19th with a fastest time of 1:16.509 in his Williams.

The groundhog momentarily diverted attention, when it crossed the track right in front of Sainz in the first practice. The Spaniard missed the lucky animal by a whisker.

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Ferrari is under close scrutiny after a double retirement in Azerbaijan last weekend dealt a big blow to their title challenge.

Leclerc has taken the pole position six times in eight races this season, including the last four.

An engine failure knocked Leclerc out of last week’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix while leading and Ferrari has since deemed the engine “beyond repair.”

FIA announced after Friday’s second practice that Leclerc had taken his third fresh power plant of the year and would be penalized 10 places at the start of Sunday’s race.

Yuki Tsonoda also received a 10-place grid penalty Friday when AlphaTauri gave the Japanese driver his fourth engine of the season.

Verstappen has won four of the last five races and leads Perez by 21 points with Leclerc third and a further 13 behind.

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Mercedes’ seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, a seven-time winner in Canada, was eighth in session one and 13th in the later one.

Teammate George Russell was sixth and seventh and complained of the car’s “brutal” stiffness.

“Me and George had much different setups in P2 just to see if one way works and one way doesn’t,” said Hamilton, who said over the radio that his car was undriveable.

“For me, it was a disaster. It’s like the car is getting worse. It’s getting more and more unhappy the more we do to it,” added the Briton.

“I’m hoping overnight we can try to make some changes, but it’s just the fundamentals of the car … so it’s going to be a struggle.”

A discarded paper towel caused a brake fire after becoming lodged in the front right wheel of Esteban Ocon’s Alpine, with the Frenchman pitting for it to be removed.

Associated Press contributed to this report