Kimi Raikkonen gave Ferrari the lead in the second practice for the Canadian Grand Prix, while Red Bull had their programs cut short by mechanical problems.
Raikkonen was the only driver under 73 seconds as he set the fastest time of 1m12.935s on Friday afternoon ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel with Valtteri Bottas taking fourth position.
Red Bull came to Montreal with upgrades hoping to be competitive once again but these hopes will be reconsidered after both drivers not able to complete the session.
Daniel Ricciardo had an engine failure while his team-mate Max Verstappen was forced to stop following a suspected gearbox problem. The only silver lining for the Milton Keynes-based outfit was the Dutchman’s pace as he was within half a second of the best time set by the Ferrari.
Felipe Massa took sixth, as Williams look more competitive around one of their strongest circuits with Fernando Alonso, who had a hydraulic problem in Practice 1 and missed much of Practice 2, was able to finish seventh 0.2 seconds adrift of his former team-mate.
Force India continued to look strong as Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez ended eighth and 10th respectively with Daniil Kvyat also enjoying a good Friday in ninth, one place better than he had managed in the morning.
The day was noticeable for all the drivers struggling for a lack of grip. The reasons for this were two-fold as the rarely used Circuit Gilles Villeneuve was incredibly dusty and slippery, but also the harder compounds this year not biting into the racetrack as much.
This meant almost every driver spun, either at Turns 1&2 or 6&7 at some point during the day, but none more so than Romain Grosjean who spun three times in second practice including on consecutive laps at the same corner, Turn 6.
The Frenchman was furious over the radio yet still managed to claim 11th for Haas ahead of Nico Hulkenberg in 12th, in what was an improved session for the Renault driver.
Carlos Sainz was also recovering for time lost in FP1, recording the 43 laps and finishing the session 13th, while Lance Stroll, who takes his home Grand Prix for the first time as an F1 driver, was not able to produce a result better than 17th.
The two Saubers completed the field with the McLaren of Stoffel Vandoorne in between Marcus Ericsson in 18th and Pascal Wehrlein in 20th.
