Mercedes suddenly appear top in Canada, while Verstappen suffers

As the session got underway, Lance Stroll crashed, but since the Canadian driver was able to drive the car to a marshall’s post the running was not neutralised.

George Russell was the quickest driver, with Max Verstappen trailing the Briton by 0.213s. Behind them Carlos Sainz in his slippery Williams completed the top 3.

Sainz then split Russell and Verstappen taking P2, with Fernando Alonso slotting in P4.

There were many close calls throughout the session with Isack Hadjar, Liam Lawson and Alex Albon suffering with traffic and almost crashing into the back of other cars.

Fernando Alonso and Pierre Gasly also had on the limit moments as they couldn’t count on the grip they wanted to really extract the lap time from their cars.

McLaren seemed to turn a new leaf, with Lando Norris at least who managed to place his MCL39 behind Russell’s Mercedes. Andrea Kimi Antonelli also had a much better session, this time in P3 behind the McLaren driver.

For Red Bull it was a complicated session as Verstappen complained of ride issues due to bouncing. He spent a lot of time in the pits and ten minutes past the halfway mark he was found in P9 behind Lewis Hamilton, and teammate Yuki Tsunoda down in P15.