Alonso edges out Mercedes in first practice

Scuderia Ferrari

Fernando Alonso edged out Lewis Hamilton during the opening 90 minute practice session ahead of this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix.

Alonso set a time of 1:17.238 in his Ferrari F14T to edge out Mercedes rival Hamilton by 0.016s.

Championship leader Nico Rosberg was third.

The Mercedes duo set the early pace in the session, with Hamilton edging out Rosberg by 0.050s during the first runs on the prime tyre, which this weekend is the yellow-banded soft compound.

Several drivers struggled with the ‘green’ circuit across the opening part of the session; Hamilton had to take to the run-off at the first corner while Nico Hülkenberg spun at turn nine, forcing one of the McLaren drivers into evasive action.

The day’s first casualty came with half an hour remaining as Monaco star Jules Bianchi clipped the wall on the exit of turn four, causing damage to his Marussia MR-03. The French driver crawled his way back to the pits.

After a brief lull in activity Rosberg claimed back top spot by a tenth of a second before lowering his own benchmark even further. Alonso briefly displaced Hamilton until the Brit responded to Rosberg’s time and snatched top spot by almost half a second. Alonso was the next driver to set a quick time as he went to within 0.121s of Hamilton, while Sebastian Vettel popped up in fourth position. Rosberg consequently improved his time, but it kept him in third place.

That looked set to be the order, only for Alonso to improve to a 1.17.238 to claim top spot by 0.016s over Hamilton, who set a couple of purple sector times but abandoned his lap after a big lock-up at the hairpin as spots of rain fell briefly.

Vettel ended the session in fourth place, almost nine-tenths down on Alonso, with Valtteri Bottas in fifth. Daniel Ricciardo got very close to the ‘Wall of Champions’ early on in the session and ended the session in sixth, while Jenson Button led McLaren team-mate Kevin Magnussen in seventh.

Kimi Räikkönen and Jean-Éric Vergne rounded out the top 10.

Hülkenberg edged out Force India team-mate Sergio Pérez in 11^th, ahead of Adrian Sutil, Romain Grosjean and Daniil Kvyat.

Pastor Maldonado was 16^th, while Felipe Massa completed only seven laps due to an ERS pump failure and Esteban Gutiérrez also had his session truncated prematurely due to a technical issue with his Sauber C33.

Bianchi still beat team-mate Chilton despite his earlier prang, while Marcus Ericsson and Caterham reserve driver Alexander Rossi rounded out the runners.

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