Button and Vettel quickest in Canadian Friday practice
Button held on to the top spot, despite the best efforts from Schumacher and Hamilton
Friday, 11, Jun 2010 04:12
By Adam Leveridge.
Jenson Button led Michael Schumacher in the first practice session of the Canadian grand prix weekend, while Sebastian Vettel showed Red Bull's hand during second practice by going fastest overall with a 1m16.8.
Both Red Bulls ended first practice among the midfield pack, with Sebastian Vettel posting the sixth quickest time and Mark Webber only managing 13th fastest, but their pace in the second session was much stronger with both appearing at the top end of the times.
Most teams brought bespoke low-downforce packages to Montreal, tuned to deal with the fast, stop-start nature of the Circuit du Gilles Villeneuve, and McLaren made use of the luminous paint to analyse the airflow over an updated barge board in the first 90-minute practice session.
The track was quiet for the first 30 minutes of the session while all 24 runners completed their installation laps and teams made any adjustments necessary.
It was Kamui Kobayashi and Jaime Alguersuari who ventured out on track to post times on the board, with both chopping and changing at the top of the leaderboard while they got to grips with the circuit.
Nico Hulkenburg, Bruno Senna and Sebastian Buemi then appeared on track, just as spits of rain began to fall, with around 50 minutes left on the clock.
Jenson Button became the first of the leaders to post a time and he worked his way up to a quick lap, slotting into sixth on his first attempt.
The reigning world champion eventually went quickest overall with a 1m19.315, after Lewis Hamilton in the sister McLaren posted a 1m19.7 and Michael Schumacher in the Mercedes went third fastest also with a time in the 1m19s, relegating Rubens Barrichello down to fourth place.
Schumacher improved to a 1m19.1 to go provisionally fastest, just before Hamilton bettered that time by six tenths of a second and was joined at the top of the times by Button once again.
Fernando Alonso went third fastest with a 1m19.0, while Felipe Massa could only manage the seventh fastest time on his first ten-lap run of the weekend, slotting in behind the Mercedes pairing led by Nico Rosberg and Robert Kubica in the Renault.
The Brazilian was shuffled down the order and outside of the top ten as both Red Bulls completed their stints, with Sebastian Vettel going seventh and Mark Webber tenth.
Kubica then popped up in fourth, having broken into the 1m18s, as the yellow flags were pulled out in response to a breakdown for Lucas di Grassi, four laps into his first run.
The Pole continued to improve and pushed Alonso down one place, while Schumacher edged closer to the McLaren pairing at the top of the leaderboard with every hot lap, before splitting Button and Hamilton with the second fastest time overall.
Faster times from the Williams pairing placed them in the top ten, moving Massa to 12th and Webber to 13th by the end of the session, while Vettel improved to sixth, despite some mistakes during his hot laps, and Rosberg went fourth with a last-ditch attempt.
Unusually, the Red Bull pairing were the first to jump at the start of second practice, completing installation laps before returning to the pits.
This could have been an indication that they're struggling with the pace of the RB6 for the first time this season, following a poor showing in first practice.
The times tumbled much faster than in the morning, on a more grippy track surface, with the Renault pairing of Kubica and Petrov leading the way by setting times in the 1m18s, before being relegated down the order by the McLarens of Hamilton and Button moments later.
The timesheets changed shape dramatically with every passing minute, as teams sent their drivers out on the super-soft tyres to get banker laps in.
The Mercedes GP runners staked their claim as McLaren's biggest threat for the race win this weekend as they did in P1, by going to the top of the leaderboard again in the opening minutes of second practice.
Rosberg went quickest with a 1m17.277 on his first stint of the afternoon, while Schumacher set a 1m17.8 to go third, ahead of Massa and an impressively quick Tonio Liuzzi in the lead Force India.
The Red Bulls appeared to be struggling again as P2 got underway, however, both Vettel and Webber posted times in the 1m17s to go second and fourth respectively on their second runs of the afternoon, suggesting they were sandbagging earlier in the day.
Rosberg was on fire and he managed to increase his advantage to Vettel by a further tenth on his second stint, setting a 1m17.151, when the most of the field ceased to chase quick times.
With half an hour to go, Vettel improved by becoming the first man of the weekend to break into the 1m16s, while Alonso placed his Ferrari in second place.
As the session came to a close, drivers began their final long-runs of the day on the soft tyres, however, the times remained relatively static with most drivers complaining of severe tyre graining at the rear.