2025 F1 Canadian Grand Prix - Friday Practice as it happened

After an interesting day of running, it is hard to judge who looks like the team to beat in Canada. 

It was certainly a strong end to Friday for Mercedes, while McLaren had a bit of a tougher day and surely have more performance to find. 

We will be back tomorrow evening to provide live updates of final practice and qualifying! 

The focus at the end of the session is on long runs ahead of Sunday's grand prix. Nothing too dramatic to report happening on track at the moment. 

Norris has posted his best lap of the session to go P2 and split the Mercedes drivers. The McLaren driver is just 0.028s off Russell. That's more like it from McLaren.

Antonelli goes two tenths slower than Russell to make it a Mercedes 1-2. The Silver Arrows are going well here. Let's not forget, Russell claimed pole here a year ago. 

Russell's best time was set on mediums, whereas Antonelli had softs on his W16. 

The McLaren pair of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris have improved to move third and fourth, albeit nearly half a second down on the Mercedes. 

Hamilton finds time on the soft tyre to put his Ferrari second but still half a second behind Russell. 

The seven-time world champion is doing all of the legwork as the sole Ferrari driver in this session as he gathers all that crucial tyre data. 

Colapinto has spun down at Turn 1 in an almost replica spin as the one he had this morning. 

Russell is flying out there! 

On a set of mediums now, Russell has gone even quicker with a 1m12.123s to pull 0.641s clear of Sainz's Williams. 

Russell goes even faster to pump in a 1m12.602s, while Carlos Sainz jumps up to second.

Williams are looking strong once again. Sainz is just 0.162s behind Russell, while teammate Alex Albon is sixth as it stands. 

Verstappen is not particularly happy with the handling of his Red Bull. 

"The car is a little bit more nervous than before," the Dutchman complains. 

He has just popped in a time to go third-quickest, three-tenths adrift of George Russell who has just gone fastest on soft tyres. 

Times are still tumbling and ever changing in these early stages but it is Norris currently leading the way from Verstappen.

That's the first time we've seen a McLaren at the top of the timesheets after a bit of a messy FP1. 

Lance Stroll has broken the front left of his Aston Martin after hitting the wall! He has managed to get his damaged car to the escape road down at the hairpin. 

Green light and FP2 - minus Charles Leclerc's Ferrari - is underway. 

A Ferrari statement read: “Due to the damage to his car sustained in the crash in FP1, Charles Leclerc will not take part in FP2, as the survival cell on his SF-25 needs to be replaced.

“As per the regulations, Charles will be able to drive in FP3.”

Fred Vasseur has launched into a passionate and punchy rant in response to reports suggesting he could be replaced as Ferrari F1 team principal.

“I don’t understand the target. Perhaps it’s to give shit to the team. But in this case I don’t see the point," Vasseur said. “Perhaps it’s for them the only way to exist. This is probably more the reason. But it’s really hurting the team.

“At one stage it’s a lack of focus and when you are fighting for the championship, every single detail makes the difference. From the beginning of the weekend we are just speaking about this.

“If it’s their target to put the team in this situation they have reached their goal. It’s not like this that we will be able to win the championship - at least not with these kinds of journalists around us.”

Vasseur has revealed Leclerc is set to miss FP2 following his crash in first practice.

Speaking in the FIA press conference, Vasseur said: "When I left the garage, we think we damaged the chassis and we won’t be able to do FP2 by regulations. We need to do some checks."

Martin Brundle has labelled speculation about Frederic Vasseur’s future at Ferrari as “nuts”, saying it should be the “last thing” they do.

“They might well be, but it would be nuts to change Fred Vasseur,” Brundle said ahead of FP1 in Montreal.

“Is he the problem? I don’t think he’s the problem at the moment. The car’s not fast enough. Now that’s a collaboration between everybody in the team. Who would you replace him with?

“A new broom comes in and everybody keeps their head down, start working in silence because you wait and see where they stand with the new boss. It’s the last thing Ferrari need to do at the moment.

“Fred’s got a lot of experience. He can handle the pressure. It’s only a year ago I did an interview with him here and everybody was celebrating what an amazing job he’s done turning Ferrari around.

“They just won Monaco but it didn’t go so well immediately after that. You know what, this is not a Premier League club where you keep changing the managers until eventually you hopefully find one. You can’t do that. It would be nuts.”

Norris improves to go seventh, 0.458s off Verstappen. That's a bit more like it from McLaren, though championship leader Oscar Piastri is only P14. 

Norris has had another slide down at Turn 10 as he exits the chicane. His McLaren gets all out of shape coming out of the corner and nearly sends him into the wall! 

McLaren's drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are only 12th and 16th as things stand. Are we about to see some of the MCL39's pace unleashed before the end of FP1?