Ferraris Fernando Alonso claimed the fastest time of Friday afternoon in Montreal as the rain showers that disrupted the morning session stayed away in second practice at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve.

Alonso's lap time of 1:14.818 came 55 minutes into FP2. It narrowly edged the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton into P2 and was the last significant change to the leader board. Afterwards everyone then settled into long run simulations for the final half hour. Romain Grosjean was third for Lotus, ahead of Red Bull Racings Mark Webber and the second Mercedes of Nico Rosberg.

Felipe Massa was sixth for Ferrari, followed by Sebastian Vettel for Red Bull. Adrian Sutil was eighth for Force India, ahead of McLarens Jenson Button. Toro Rossos Daniel Ricciardo completed the top ten.

The absence of rain was a significant factor this afternoon, with the field rushing out en masse as the pitlane light went green. The track stayed dry for the whole session, though a few drops of rain did fall towards the end of the 90 minutes. It has the threat of heavier showers, however, that affected the run plans. The session began with most runners using Pirellis experimental tyre for a stint. They then swapped onto the medium compoundbut after a short burst switched to the red-banded supersoft for another short burst, rather than leaving that to the end of the session as would frequently be the case. Once the supersoft runs were completed, drivers settled into high-fuel long runs to the chequered flag.

From the start, the field were immediately lapping a few seconds faster than they had on the supersoft compound at the end of FP1. Hamilton was the first man to break through the 1m16s barrier, setting a time of 1:15.702 half an hour into the session. After that the Red Bulls took over the pace settings, with Vettel and Webber swapping fastest timesWebber ultimately the faster with 1:15.212 at the halfway mark.

Hamilton was the first man under 1m15s, resetting P1 to 1:14.830, but held the lead for only a minute before Alonso narrowly beat that with 37 minutes left on the clock.

1 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:14.8182 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:14.830 0.0123 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:15.083 0.2654 Mark Webber Red Bull Racing 1:15.212 0.3945 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:15.249 0.4316 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:15.254 0.4367 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 1:15.280 0.4628 Adrian Sutil Force India 1:15.396 0.5789 Jenson Button McLaren 1:15.422 0.60410 Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso 1:15.566 0.74811 Kimi Rikknen Lotus 1:15.599 0.78112 Sergio Prez McLaren 1:15.661 0.84313 Paul di Resta Force India 1:15.855 1.03714 Pastor Maldonado Williams 1:16.319 1.50115 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:16.351 1.53316 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:16.374 1.55617 Esteban Gutirrez Sauber 1:16.475 1.65718 Nico Hlkenberg Sauber 1:16.929 2.11119 Jules Bianchi Marussia 1:17.070 2.25220 Charles Pic Caterham 1:17.236 2.41821 Max Chilton Marussia 1:17.888 3.07022 Giedo van der Garde Caterham 1:18.392 3.574