George Russell set the FP2 pace at the Canadian Grand Prix, as Kimi Antonelli made it two Mercedes in the top three.

Sandwiched between the Silver Arrows was McLaren’s Lando Norris, while Charles Leclerc missed out on all the fun, his shunt from the opening session spelling the end of his day at the wheel of the Ferrari, while Lance Stroll also crashed out.

Canadian Grand Prix FP2: Russell on top, Leclerc sits out

FP2 got underway with 19 drivers ready to hit the track, the exception being Charles Leclerc, who after his heavy crash early in FP1, was ruled out of the session with a survival cell replacement required on his Ferrari.

As per the regulations, Ferrari will need to wait until Saturday to get the new survival cell approved in time for FP3.

An early brush of the grass for Hamilton entering Turn 4 – where Leclerc had crashed earlier in the day – would not have done the heartrate much good for the folks at Ferrari.

But, while there were no walls hit for Hamilton, the same was not true for Lance Stroll, who had a crushed left-front steering arm on his Aston Martin, an unwelcomed setback as he hit the wall coming out of Turn 7, Stroll back in the car fresh off a procedure to relieve the hand and wrist pain which ruled him out of the Spanish Grand Prix.

And with that, we were down to 18, as Verstappen reported that his Red Bull was “a little bit more nervous than before” on entry to slow and medium-speed corners.

For Hamilton, he reported that “the rear keeps kicking out” as he cut the final chicane, race engineer Riccardo Adami asked for some guidance.

George Russell was setting the early pace, clocking a 1:12.887 with the soft C6 tyres bolted on to his Mercedes.

F1 2025 driver head-to-heads

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

Albon sparked a few surprised looks from the Williams crew as he drove straight past the pit box, a “sorry” delivered over the radio as he trundled on by, while as the session approached halfway, Russell continued to hold top spot as he upped his pace to a 1:12.123.

Colapinto meanwhile was replicating his FP1 spin down at Turn 2 to an absolute tee, as the rear of the Alpine swung around on him again.

McLaren continued to lap off the pace, Norris their highest runner, nine-tenths off Russell’s pace.

The Brit soon unlocked a chunk of pace to shoot up to P3, soon downgraded to P4 thanks to team-mate Oscar Piastri, but still, Russell had the luxury of almost half a second over the McLarens, as Kimi Antonelli moved into position to make it a Mercedes one-two.

But, McLaren were just warming up it turned out, as Norris reduced Russell’s lead to three hundredths, while Fernando Alonso took to the grass at Turn 4/5, and Pierre Gasly, Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson all lamented traffic issues, Gasly doing well to rescue a slide as he came up behind Norris out of Turn 4.

As is the norm, race simulations took over to see out FP2, as Russell topped the session by 0.028s from Norris, while Antonelli ensured both Mercedes made the top three.

Full Canadian GP FP2 timesheet:

1 George Russell Mercedes 1:12.123
2 Lando Norris McLaren +0.028
3 Kimi Antonelli Mercedes +0.288
4 Alexander Albon Williams +0.322
5 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin +0.335
6 Oscar Piastri McLaren +0.439
7 Carlos Sainz Williams +0.508
8 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari +0.530
9 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing +0.543
10 Liam Lawson Racing Bulls +0.628
11 Isack Hadjar Racing Bulls +0.676
12 Pierre Gasly Alpine +0.751
13 Gabriel Bortoleto Kick Sauber +0.773
14 Nico Hulkenberg Kick Sauber +0.791
15 Yuki Tsunoda Red Bull Racing +0.816
16 Oliver Bearman Haas F1 Team +0.957
17 Esteban Ocon Haas F1 Team +1.052
18 Franco Colapinto Alpine +1.775
19 Lance Stroll Aston Martin
20 Charles Leclerc Ferrari

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