FP1 REPORT: Hamilton tops Bottas in Mercedes one-two!

Lewis Hamilton was quickest in the first free practice session for the Canadian Grand Prix, with Valtteri Bottas in second and Charles Leclerc in third.

Hamilton recorded a best lap of 1:12.767, with Bottas less than two-hundredths behind his team-mate, but there was some real concern for Bottas towards the end of the session with some technical problems. Leclerc could only set a 1:13+ lap with Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel in the following positions.

The session started off really slowly, with the highlight being Nicholas Latifi, who was replacing Robert Kubica for FP1, nearly hitting a groundhog - but doing some Sergio Perez-esque dodging to avoid the animal!

Verstappen set a 1:15.026 about 30 minutes into the session and that looked the first meaningful time of the session, and after reported to his team radio: "The track is extremely dirty!" - referring to the heavy amount of dust that was gathered on the circuit.

The two Mercedes came out and Bottas went top immediately with a 1:14.160, ahead of Verstappen and his team-mate Hamilton. Bottas quickly improved on his time as well - moving onto a 1:13.495 - with Hamilton equalling his time, to the exact millisecond!

Romain Grosjean span, with many of the drivers failing to adapt to the insane amount of dust on, or around the track. There was a brief yellow flag, but no harm done to his Haas.

It was turning into a battle of the Mercedes' once again at the top of the leaderboard, with Bottas and Hamilton consistently trying to outdo each other, but the times were still very early ones.

A VSC (Virtual Safety Car) was summoned as Antonio Giovinazzi spun into the wall and caused a rear puncture to his right rear and some serious damage to his Alfa Romeo. Another nightmare for the Italian.

Vettel spun out towards the end of the session, with Ferrari a second off Mercedes at the time. Luckily for the four-time world champion, Vettel didn't cause any damage to his SF90.

Mercedes had a few problems towards the latter stages of the session, with Bottas reporting misfiring on his new power unit upgrade. A loss of fuel pressure was also reported to cause some concerns to the Bottas-side of the garage.