The last hour of training before qualifying began in cold, humid conditions after heavy rain, which had hit Montreal regularly for the past few days, arrived early enough Saturday to interrupt the procedure.
At the start of the session at a Gilles Villeneuve Circuit soaked, the four cars of Haas and Alfa Romeo went cautiously to the exploratory laps in extreme wet water, which were soon joined by Ferrari partner Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
Haas’ Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher raced in the 1m40 immediately, as the puddles made the Quebec circuit especially treacherous, Magnussen settled for a 1m39.148 before heading to the garage.
Although few pilots were in a hurry to get out, several acknowledged the need to get an idea of the conditions knowing that qualifying could take place in similar circumstances later.
After lining up the Turn 1/2 complex, Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel found more grip to go up with a 1m39.041s and then 1m38.294s after 15 minutes, which triggered a number of improvements. , with Valtteri Bottas d’Alfa then marking a 1m. .37.909 s.
Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz drastically lowered the benchmark by half with a time of 1m36.831s and 1m35.858s amid countless off-piste excursions from his teammates.
The cars of Red Bull and Mercedes have joined the fight after halfway – Mercedes without the double left on the ground after murmurs of rival protests – although the Red Bulls initially did not set a time.
Instead, it was Vettel who continued to accumulate mileage and the four-time world champion was also the first with a 1m35.821 20 minutes to go.
The German started exchanging the fastest times with Alonso from Alpine in what seemed like an echo of an earlier era, with Alonso’s 1m33,836 marking his lead in the last 10 minutes, now that the two pilots switched to intermediates.
Magnussen caused the most notable incident of the session by going straight on turn 1 and then crossing the track, keeping his Haas out of Tecpro’s barriers and forcing Russell to take steps to prevent it.
Minutes later, world champion Max Verstappen suffered a similar scare after turning at turn 2 in the middle, the Dutchman also escaped unscathed.
In the final seconds, Pierre Gasly of AlphaTauri took the leader of the second session, Alonso and Vettel.
Esteban Ocon finished fourth, followed by McLaren duo Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris. George Russell was the first of the extreme runners in wet in seventh.
Red Bull duo Sergio Pérez and Verstappen finished in eighth and ninth place, ahead of Sainz.
The Alfa Romeos were next with Bottas and Zhou Guanyu in 11th and 12th, with Lance Stroll further back in 13th and Magnussen in 14th.
Hamilton had another difficult session in the 15th, followed by Alex Albon’s Williams and Tsunoda’s AlphaTauri.
Schumacher and Nicholas Latifi’s second Williams fell to 18th and 19th.
Leclerc, who will be coming off the back of the grid after taking his fourth Ferrari power unit of the season, did five laps without setting a lap time in 20th.