Di Resta goes fastest in wet first practice

F1 Grand Prix, GP Canada, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve

Paul Di Resta set the fastest time at the very end of the first practice session at Canada. The Force India driver put in his time at the very end of the session as track conditions started to improve. He was less than a tenth quicker than Jenson Button.

At the start of the session the track is still quite wet but rain is easing off. The ambient air temperature is a chilly 15 degrees Celsius, whilst the track temperature is just one degree higher. Gutierrez and Chilton are the first to tackle the track as they go out on intermediates, with all others following at one point in the next 20 minutes.

After 15 minutes the rain stops, and a further 5 minutes later Mark Webber takes first place on the timesheet, faster than Gutierrez. No other driver has thus far set a time, probably waiting for more favourable conditions later on in this session.

Meanwhile at Caterham, American Alex Rossi gets his chance of a Friday morning run, in place of Charles Pic.

At 10:38 local time, 38 minutes into the session, DRS is enabled again as a dry line is clearly starting to show on the track. Drivers are however still running on the intermediates. On a busy track, Rosberg has set the fastest time so far, ahead of Ricciardo, Vergne, Button, Hamilton and Di Resta.

2 minutes later Bianchi comes to a standstill at turn 3. He switches off the engine following advice from his engineer and gets out of his Marussia MR02. The Frenchman has completed 8 laps so far with a best of 1:29.306.

At the halfway point, the only man not to have set a time yet is Felipe Massa. The Ferrari driver has a new chassis due to his crash in Monaco but has today managed only a mere 3 laps.

Following Hamilton's improvement from 6th to 2nd, Nico Rosberg comes back on the track to improve his own time. At the one hour mark, he improves his time from 30 minutes earlier by more than a full second, setting 1m 23.680s and confirming his early form. 2 minutes later Vettel has a competitive run and moves up into second, 3 tenths off of Rosberg.

Ferrari meanwhile are quietly waiting in the garage. Alonso and Massa have jointly completed only 11 laps, good for the 14th and 18th fastest time so far. From time to time they come out for constant speed straight line aero tests on the new prototype Pirelli tyres, only to come back into the pits after one or two laps.

Another minute later, Vettel improves again and moves into the top spot, shaving off nearly a full second off of his own time to go fastest. He is particularly quick in sector 2 which includes the hairpin and a number of chicanes leading up to that corner.

7 minutes from the end, there's suddenly a lot more action on a track that is still rather wet. A small dry line however is enough for everyone to go for the slick tyres. Many however touch the wet parts of the track, cooling the tyres and slipping off the track.

3 minute from the end, Pastor Maldonado crashes his Williams into the wall at turn 4, breaking off the front wing and nose of his new Williams FW35 chassis. This happened just after Button went atop the timesheets and Raikkonen second. Di Resta managed to go faster still at the very end of the session, ahead of Button, Grosjean and Alonso.