Canadian GP final practice

Lewis Hamilton jumps up to second, before Leclerc becomes the first man to post a lap under one minute 11 seconds. Leclerc’s mark to catch is 1:10.982.

Tyre usage looks like it could throw a curve ball into this race
weekend. Judging by Friday’s race runs, no-one is going to want to spend long
on the soft in the race. It was dropping off by two seconds within just a very
few laps – four or five in the case of both Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri
Bottas. The medium, on which Leclerc did his long run, and the hard, on which
Bottas was very quick later on, look a much better bet. Will that affect
strategy for qualifying, to the extent of the top teams not wanting to use the
soft at all? It could well do.

Charles Leclerc is back out for his second run, armed with the softs, and he regains the top time. A great lap of 1:11.058, with Vettel also improving, but now 0.420 behind his team-mate.

Leclerc got the first pole of his career in Bahrain, before an engine fault denied him the win, but if he can repeat that later on he could be starting out in front tomorrow.

We have only 0.065 seconds between the top three. You do not want to miss qualifying later.

Bottas has his spell at the top with a 1:11.531, Vettel second, Leclerc third, Hamilton fourth, Verstappen fifth, Gasly sixth.

Cameron: I really want to see Leclerc on pole and take the win. Making amends for the disappointment in Monaco and that engine problem robbing him of the win in Bahrain

Kay: I’d really love to see Charles Leclerc get pole and the win today to make up for his crash during Baku quali and not getting through to Q2 in Monaco

Not what the F1 mechanics at Haas and Ferrari expected to be doing today…

Just like yesterday, a groundhog / marmot / or whatever it’s called, runs on to the track. Yesterday, Nicholas Latifi had to swerve to avoid one, today it’s Kimi Raikkonen’s turn.

Once again these furry creatures are dicing with death but escape unharmed.

“There is an animal running around before Turn Six. I don’t know what they’re called,” says Raikkonen.

These are the tyres we have available this weekend.

There have been
murmurings of discontent among some teams this year about the difficulty of
getting the tyres into the right working temperature window, following the
introduction of a thinner tread depth this year to combat overheating. And on
Saturday Red Bull’s Helmut Marko gave an interview to Italy’s Gazzetta in which
he complained: “Mercedes has a huge advantage at the moment thanks to this
stupid change on tyres. There are nine teams that struggle and only one that
benefits.” Marko alleged – inaccurately – that the request for the tyre change
came from Mercedes and said “that’s the way to ruin the sport”.

Actually, the thinner tyres were approved by all teams following
the post-season Abu Dhabi tyre test in 2018, and were also run at three races
last year – one of which, Silverstone, Ferrari dominated. Pirelli says there
has been no official request or talks of any kind on the matter. The rules
dictate that any tyre-specification change requires agreement of at least 70%
of the teams. Pirelli add that if this was achieved – and that’s a big if –
they “would of course consider it”, but that any process would also have to
involve the FIA.

1. Vettel 1:11.557
2. Leclerc +0.039
3. Bottas +0.441
4. Hamilton +0.562
5. Verstappen +0.831
6. Gasly +1.007
7. Perez +1.150
8. Kvyat +1.170
9. Norris +1.188
10. Albon +1.209

Karen Waddy: Bottas on pole please. He’s the one who could potentially rattle Hamilton’s cage the most at the moment and I want to see how long it takes for the 4 times World Champion to begin referring to Valtteri as ‘the other driver’.

Natalie B: I know it’s “boring” but I will always want Lewis to get pole and the win. But my second wish is that Russell gets his qualifying deficit to p18 down to 0.2 seconds. Come on Williams!

Mohsin Fazal: Anyone but Hamilton or Bottas please. We need a change!! Though it seems very unlikely

These garage floors? No good. Twice parts of it have stuck to Romain Grosjean’s tyres and now Ferrari are trying to hack up pieces of their own surface to avoid something similar happening to them.

Here’s our Jennie Gow with a souvenir piece from Haas, especially for our commentator Jack Nicholls.

We’re seeing what happened to Lance Stroll and it was a lot more than dramatic than we first thought, with flames coming from the back of his car. He’s quite lucky to be unhurt from that incident, and that may be a lot more serious than first thought.

Jolyon Palmer

Former Renault driver on BBC Radio 5 live