Lewis Hamilton sets pace at Canadian Grand Prix practice sessions

Defending Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton has set the pace at the Canadian Grand Prix field in both of Friday's practice sessions at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

After taking his Mercedes to a quickest lap of one minute 14.755 seconds in the morning, the Briton lowered his time to 1:14.212 in the afternoon in dry conditions over the 4.361km track.

Hamilton headed Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel by 0.257 seconds and was more than half a second clear of Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg.

Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo were next, both 0.9s off Hamilton, separated by only 0.012s, while Jenson Button was in seventh place for McLaren, matching the time of Williams's Valtteri Bottas in sixth.

Second practice standings:

1. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 2. Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) 3. Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) 4. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) 5. Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) 6. Valtteri Bottas (Williams) 7. Jenson Button (McLaren) 8. Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) 9. Nico Hulkenberg (Force India) 10. Carlos Sainz Jr (Toro Rosso) 11. Fernando Alonso (McLaren) 12. Sergio Perez (Force India) 13. Felipe Massa (Williams) 14. Daniil Kvyat (Toro Rosso) 15. Romain Grosjean (Haas) 16. Kevin Magnussen (Renault) 17. Felipe Nasr (Sauber) 18. Esteban Gutierrez (Haas) 19. Marcus Ericsson (Sauber) 20. Jolyon Palmer (Renault) 21. Pascal Wehrlein (Manor) 22. Rio Haryanto (Manor)