Verstappen draws blood first at Canada as McLaren struggle massively
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Max Verstappen topped the timesheets ahead of Alexander Albon in P2 and Carlos Sainz in P3. McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri finished in P7 and P14 respectively.
How it happened
As the session started Franco Colapinto found himself spinning around at the exit of the second corner. The order at the top then kept on changing with Lando Norris, Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and ultimately Isack Hadjar topping the timesheets.
Verstapen then took over, closely followed by Leclerc, Russell and Hadjar. As Norris who had set purple sectors in the first two, lost a second on the third and last one after he understeered at the hairpin.
Max Verstappen led the first practice session in Canada
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The session was then neutralised after Leclerc smashed the left side of his Ferrari overshooting Turn 3 and not bailing out into the run-off. Roughly ten minutes later the session was restarted and drivers again took to the track with Verstappen marginally beating Leclerc’s time by 0.22s with a 1:13.863.
As the session went on, Hamilton, Russell, Norris were among the drivers caught out by the lack of grip available on track, with the Ferrari British driver spinning around at the hairpin and the latter two having huge oversteer moments that saw them take to the grass and the runoff areas.
Verstappen however proved to be the quickest driver ahead of the surprisingly strong Williams cars of Alexander Albon and Carlos Sainz.
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