Hamilton sets fastest time (From The Argus)

Hamilton sets fastest time

5:51pm Friday 8th June 2012 in National Sport © Press Association 2013

Lewis Hamilton set the ball rolling on the prospect of becoming the seventh different winner of a grand prix this season.

Hamilton set the fastest time at the end of an intriguing first practice in Montreal that saw Heikki Kovalainen smash into a wall and a variety of animals that included a fox, a squirrel and a groundhog make a scurrying appearance around the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

The 27-year-old, remarkably not one of the sextet to stand on top of the podium this year, was rarely headed after initially going quickest early on, ultimately finishing with a time of one minute 15.564secs for the 4.361km track.

In another remarkably close session, with the top 11 all within a second of McLaren's Hamilton, reigning champion Sebastian Vettel was second on the timesheet in his Red Bull, 0.118secs adrift. Vettel, however, is currently under investigation by the stewards for an incident with Bruno Senna in his Williams.

The 24-year-old German was followed by Mercedes' Nico Rosberg and current championship leader in Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, with Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber fifth, a third of a second down.

Nico Hulkenberg suggested Force India could be strong, the German 0.422secs off the pace, with team-mate Paul di Resta 11th, nearly half a second behind.

In between the duo were Sauber pair Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez, along with Mercedes' Michael Schumacher and Jenson Button in his McLaren, the latter again enduring issues. Button managed just 12 laps due to an oil leak that resulted in the gearbox being removed, but with no penalty to be applied on this occasion.

For Lotus, it was a strangely subdued session as Romain Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen were down in 14th and 15th, the latter 1.5secs down.

The nature and layout of the track is one that lends itself to incidents, underlined by the fact there have been 14 deployments of the safety car over the past 10 years. So it came as no real surprise when, 50 minutes into the session, Kovalainen brought out the red flags with a sizeable shunt in his Caterham.

The Finn did nothing more than put a wheel on a rumble strip into turn nine, the conclusion of a fast right-left kink in the track sited on the Ile Notre Dame in the middle of the St Lawrence Seaway. But that was enough to slam the right side of the Finn's car into a wall, the impact spraying debris all over the track, resulting in a 12-minute delay.