Mercedes back in control as Briton finishes ahead of team-mate Rosberg in second practice session.
After Fernando Alonso had beaten Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg to top spot in the morning session at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, the Silvers Arrows returned to the top of the timesheet in Montreal in the afternoon as Hamilton went quickest, ahead of team-mate Rosberg. Sebastian Vettel was third for Red Bull Racing.
The Mercedes pair traded fastest times throughout the session but Hamilton eventually prevailed, logging a lap of 1:16.118 to put almost two tenths of a second between him and Monaco Grand Prix winner Rosberg.
After finishing almost a second shy of the frontrunners in the morning session Sebastian Vettel improved in the afternoon, taking his Renault-powered Red Bull Racing RB10 to within half a second of Hamilton’s time, although the champion set his supersoft tyre-shod lap later in the session than his rivals after being restricted to his team's garage with gearbox issues.
Vettel’s team-mate Daniel Ricciardo had a difficult afternoon, however, and finished in 12th position. He later admitted he had "work to do overnight".
“The driving was good today, but looking at the time sheets we’ve got some work to do," he said. "We got some good references to go by and we need to put some work in tonight – I enjoy driving around here and there are a lot of fans in the grandstands. It seems that we’re close to some of the other teams, so we’ve just got to extract as much from the cars as we can over the weekend.”
Fourth place went to Kimi Raikkonen. After finishing 1.3s adrift of team-mate Alonso in the morning session, the Finn eclipsed the Spaniard in the second outing, finishing five hundredths of a second ahead of Alonso. Raikkonen’s also suffered a spin at the hairpin, but after he had set his fastest time.
With Alonso fifth, sixth and seventh places went to the Williams pairing of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas, the duo again confirming the strength of the Mercedes power unit on Montreal’s long straights. Massa recovered from a troubled morning session to set a best time of 1:16.774, just over a tenth ahead of Bottas.
They were followed by the McLarens of Kevin Magnussen and Jenson Button, with the final top 10 spot going to Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne.
Elsewhere there were problems for Marussia as Jules Bianchi completed just three laps in the second session. The Frenchman had already encountered trouble in the morning when he clipped a wall, damaging the rear right of his car.
Romain Grosjean’s session was ended early by a gearbox issue and Daniil Kvyat also stopped early after completed just nine laps.
Caterham, too, had difficulties in the second session with Marcus Ericsson stopping on track at Turn 3, while Kamui Kobayashi suffered two offs during the 90 minutes.
1. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m16.118s 42 laps2. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m16.293s +0.175s 393. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m16.573s +0.455s 264. Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m16.648s +0.530s 315. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m16.701s +0.583s 276. Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1m16.774s +0.656s 377. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1m16.893s +0.775s 378. Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 1m17.052s +0.934s 429. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m17.059s +0.941s 3810 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Renault 1m17.180s +1.062s 4011 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m17.626s +1.508s 2812 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1m17.644s +1.526s 3613 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m17.712s +1.594s 3514 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1m17.819s +1.701s 3315 Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 1m17.868s +1.750s 2716 Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 1m17.964s +1.846s 4717 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 1m18.340s +2.222s 4318 Max Chilton Marussia-Ferrari 1m18.693s +2.575s 3419 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso-Renault 1m18.732s +2.614s 920 Kamui Kobayashi Caterham-Renault 1m20.244s +4.126s 3821 Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 1m22.418s +6.300s 1322 Jules Bianchi Marussia-Ferrari 1m32.127s +16.009s 3
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