Hamilton, ready for fight, tops first practice

But, he eventually did creep out and managed to put in the seventh fastest time on fresh ultrasofts. This year, the drivers had a choice of the soft, super soft and ultra soft Pirelli compounds.

His former employers Ferrari proved to be the early pace setters, Vettel just edging Raikkonen off of top spot with the Ferrari powered Toro Rosso Daniil Kvyat settling into third; both the Mercedes cars yet to emerge.

With Ferrari having started this year so strongly – and the characteristics of its SF70H so well suited to the new wider tyres – there have been mounting suspicions about the benefits the Italian team gained from the extensive running that Sebastian Vettel did with a mule vehicle in 2016.

After the session, Vettel admitted it had hampered his learning during his long run but said his frustration was more with the situation than Hamilton himself. “People are just trying to make big stories out of nothing”. I spun twice today.

A five-time victor at the Canadian GP, which celebrates its 50th anniversary, Hamilton already led qualifying – but by just four one-thousandths of a second over Sebastien Vettel – when he made his final trip around the circuit.

McLaren’s Fernando Alonso saw his return to the Formula One paddock plagued by further reliability issues on Friday, but a clear run for the 35-year-old Spaniard placed him 12th in the running. Raikkonen was able to capitalise, beating his team-mate with a time of 1:12.935.

During the first session, Alonso was told by his engineer to stop on track. Alonso’s comments follow quotes in the media from McLaren boss Zak Brown suggesting strained relations with power unit supplier Honda.

The silver arrows were quick to declare their prominence in the pack; they locked down the top two spots by two-tenths of a second to the Ferraris.

“We need to get competitive and show regular signs that we are getting competitive”. “I had a couple of spins and I was fighting with the vehicle a bit, but in the end I understood what we need, what the auto needs and what I need to do”.

“Today I was fighting with the auto at the beginning, but in the end I understood what we needed and what we had to do”. Maybe take some risks, do things they wouldn’t normally do.

It’s no secret that if he’s going to catch Vettel, he has to get cracking and Canada would be a good place to start.

The session was then halted by a red flag with 18 minutes remaining when Verstappen, in the second Red Bull, suffered a gearbox problem and pulled up between Turns 7 and 8, a position regarded as unsafe.

Team-mate Daniel Ricciardo suffered an engine problem early in the second session and was only 14th fastest.