Lewis Hamilton maintained the upper hand after Fridays second practice session at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Montreals Ile Notre Dame. Having lapped in 1m 15.564s in the morning to beat Red Bulls Sebastian Vettel by 0.118s, he trimmed that to 1m 15.259s to beat Ferraris Fernando Alonso by 0.054s in the afternoon.

Right behind the Spaniard, who lapped in 1m 15.313s, Felipe Massa maintained his upswing from Monaco with 1m 15.410s for third fastest time. All three used the super-soft Pirellis, whereas Vettel set his fourth best 1m 15.531s on the soft compound, boding well for qualifying tomorrow. The world champion did the most laps of the session, with 44 - one more that Hamilton.

Fifth fastest time for Paul di Resta underpinned Force Indias hopes of a strong race, as the Scot lapped in 1m 15.544s to hold off Saubers Kamui Kobayashi on 1m 15.651s. Michael Schumacher was hot on his heels as Mercedes lead runner, with 1m 15.697s and then came Di Restas team mate Nico Hulkenberg on 1m 15.799s.

Jenson Button, like Di Resta, put in one of the performances of the session by taking ninth place with 1m 15.812s, despite sitting out most of the morning and 70 minutes of the afternoon as McLaren fixed the oil leak on his car. This took much longer than anticipated after an oil leak on to the clutch was fixed, only for another leak to manifest itself which required further dismantling.

The top 10 was rounded off by Nico Rosberg in the second Mercedes with 1m 15.878s, just ahead of Sergio Perez who took his Sauber round 1m 15.898s. Mark Webber was 12th in the second Red Bull on 1m 15.907s, with Pastor Maldonado breathing down his neck in the lead Williams with 1m 15.987s.

It was a quiet day for Lotus, with Romain Grosjean 14th on 1m 16.360s and Kimi Raikkonen 15th on 1m 16.562s, but they are happy with their race pace.

Heikki Kovalainen made up for his accident this morning with 1m 16.981s, which left his Caterham 16th.

This time it was Bruno Sennas turn to bring out the red flags after he backed his Williams into the so-called Champions Wall - where the likes of Jacques Villeneuve, Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel have previously come to grief - on the exit to the final corner. Like Kovalainen in the morning, only the Brazilians pride was hurt, but the car was a mess that took marshals 13 minutes to clear up. His 1m 17.022s left him 17th, just ahead of Vitaly Petrov who took the second Caterham round in 1m 17.075s.

Behind them, Jean-Eric Vergne headed Toro Rosso team mate Daniel Ricciardo, with 1m 17.124s to 1m 17.716s, while Pedro de la Rosa again put the HRT ahead of the Marussias with 1m 18.908s for 21st. That left Timo Glock 22nd on 1m 19.084s with Narain Karthikeyan on 1m 19.378s and Charles Pic bringing up the rear on 1m 19.902s.

Besides Sennas incident there were plenty of off-road adventures; Glock and Alonso both spun, while Webber, Di Resta, De la Rosa, Alonso and Hamilton all strayed off the grey stuff without damage.

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Practice Two - Hamilton heads Ferrari duo