Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel headed Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso in second practice at the Canadian Grand Prix as McLaren failed to repeat their early pace.
McLaren had lived up to their billing as pre-race favourites with an impressive showing in the first, morning, session.
But Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button were seventh and 11th in the afternoon.
Nico Rosberg was third for Mercedes ahead of Vettel’s team-mate Mark Webber and Felipe Massa’s Ferrari.
Vettel’s fastest lap was a one minute 16.877 seconds, only 0.086secs faster than Alonso.
But it was noticeable how much easier the Red Bull appeared to be to drive than the Ferrari.
“It’s looking good, I feel comfortable in the car,” said Vettel. “It’s very slippery - for two years we haven’t had a race here and the circuit needs time but it was already much better in the afternoon.”
Webber added: “It’ll be a hard fight on Saturday with everyone, but the car ran really well today and we’ll see what happens tomorrow.” BBC Sport
The McLarens are expected to perform well here, but even allowing for discrepancies in fuel loads in practice, their times were surprising.
In between the two most recent world champions were Renault’s Robert Kubica in eighth, with the Pole describing the greasy, slippery surface as the worst he has driven on in his time in F1.
Michael Schumacher followed in his Mercedes in ninth - after the 41-year-old seven-times champion was second quickest in the morning - with Vitantonio Liuzzi for Force India in 10th.
The final six positions were taken up by the three new teams, with Virgin Racing duo Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi bringing up the rear, the latter 4.7secs off the pace. Heikki Kovalainen at least offered Lotus Racing a degree of hope as he was only three seconds down in 19th, just 0.7secs behind the Toro Rosso of Jaime Alguersuari. The Press Association
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Formula 1: Canadian Grand Prix - First Practice Results
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