F1 : Lewis Hamilton leads the way in Canada despite late crash in practice
Lewis Hamilton topped the time sheets in both practice sessions in Canada but will not have been happy with the way his day ended, after aquaplaning in extremely wet conditions into the wall at the turn 10 hairpin.
Hamilton was quick in both sessions but also by his standards occasionally a little ragged. He spun at the hairpin in first practice before setting the fastest time of 1min 16.212secs on the soft tyres, four-tenths clear of his team-mate Nico Rosberg. Then, in the afternoon run he took a heavy run over the final chicane and did very well going wide off-track to dodge the slowing Lotus of Romain Grosjean, before he set the a time of 1:15.988s on the super-soft tyres, three tenths clear of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari’s and four and a half from Rosberg.
With rain having been expected throughout the day it descended with force with just over 50 minutes to go and Mercedes took, what after their error in Monaco, might be seen as a questionable decision to send both their drivers out on the intermediate tyre, rather than sit out the downpour in the garage.
Again Hamilton came off worse. With standing water on the circuit he had no grip on the approach to turn 10. “I am aquaplaning,” he calmly told the team before going, at a relatively gentle pace, into the tyre wall.
“Conditions worsened quicker than we expected and caught Lewis out in an unfortunate manner,” said the Mercedes technical director Paddy Lowe. Fortunately he had slowed the car sufficiently and went in front first, where what damage there was can be offset with a new front wing before Saturday qualifying. After Hamilton’s off and with the rain continuing unabated the session was red-flagged and did not begin again.
Elsewhere, one of the F1 strategy group’s recent recommendations for ways to improve the spectacle of the sport – bringing back refuelling in 2017 – will not be implemented after being unanimously rejected by the teams.
The major stumbling block is that it would not ultimately increase the spectacle, indeed that it could herald a return to the racing becoming a series of short sprints, as it had in the past.The proposal was brought forward last month, alongside other proposals such as tyre-rule changes and increasing the speed of the cars by five to six seconds a lap. Refuelling was last used in 2009 but with the concept now having been addressed by all the teams it is understood to have been not deemed beneficial on various levels.
That overtaking had increased in 2010 after refuelling was banned was a major argument against it. While equally the increased costs in building and shipping refuelling rigs was a huge disincentive during a period when the sport attempts to limit teams’ expenditure.
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