Hamilton leads Mercedes duo atop extended Canadian FP2

Mercedes teammates Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have topped the mostly dry second practice at the Canadian Grand Prix.

Dark clouds descended on Montreal, but rain held off until the final five minutes of the 90-minute session, allowing teams to complete dry qualifying and race simulations uninterrupted.

The track was declared wet in the final 10 minutes in anticipation of the thunderstorm crawling towards the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, leading to the bizarre scenes of most of the field fitting intermediate tires but lapping a still-dry track.

Most drivers completed only one lap on the wet-weather rubber before returning to pit lane and calling it a day — only for heavy rain to lash the circuit just a few minutes later.

Aston Martin, Ferrari and Alfa Romeo sent their drivers back onto the wet track, as did McLaren with Lando Norris, but the intensity of the downpour quickly exceeded the capacity of the intermediate tire.

Bottas came close to disaster after aquaplaning off the track and onto the grass at the hairpin, where he almost collected Charles Leclerc before getting his wayward Alfa back under control.

He wasn’t the only driver to slip and slide his way around the track in the heavy weather, and the drivers who had braved the tricky conditions all returned to pit lane as the session ended.

Hamilton ended the day quickest on his soft-tire run early in the session, clocking in at 1m 13.718s. Russell followed just 0.027s off the pace, with Carlos Sainz completing the top three for Ferrari at 0.126s adrift.

Fernando Alonso was fourth fastest in his upgraded Aston Martin car, the Spaniard 0.326s down on Hamilton time but 0.05s faster than Charles Leclerc, who appeared to have rediscovered confidence in his Ferrari after a difficult weekend in Barcelona.

More Formula 1

Formula 1 figures pay tribute to Zanardi

McLaren and Ferrari jump 'surprising,' says Russell

Norris credits upgrades for McLaren's Miami pace

Title leader Max Verstappen was only sixth fastest and 0.424s off the pace, but both he and teammate Sergio Perez, who was eighth, set their fastest laps on the medium tire.

Perez had in part scotched the team’s first runs when he clobbered the curbs and came close to the barrier at the exit of Turn 7, forcing him to abandon his lap and prompting Verstappen just behind him to likewise call off his lap.

Their second attempts were then curtailed by a red flag for Esteban Ocon, who stopped on track with a water pressure loss.

Verstappen also complained of problems with his downshifts early in the session.

The combination of problems opened the door to Valtteri Bottas slotting between them in seventh for Alfa Romeo.

Lance Stroll was ninth, his car having spent most of the session in flo-viz paint to assess the team’s upgrade package, while Pierre Gasly completed the top 10.

Oscar Piastri avoided disaster late in a brush with the wall of champions out of the final chicane but was able to continue to 11th ahead of Haas driver Kevin Magnussen and McLaren teammate Lando Norris.

Zhou Guanyu was 14th ahead of AlphaTauri teammates Yuki Tsunoda and Nyck dr Vies.

Alex Albon was the sole operator of the Williams upgrade package, which he took to 17th in the standings ahead of the stopped Ocon and teammate Logan Sargeant.

Nico Hulkenberg was last in the order after his engine failed just 11 laps into the session, which was stretched to 90 minutes to compensate teams for the written-off FP1 earlier in the day, which was abandoned due to CCTV issues.