The 43rd GP weekend to be completed at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve begins, strangely, with closed pitlane.
Rainstorms hit the fully resurfaced Montreal track throughout the day, but the clock started ticking down on the FP1 session as planned.
Despite this, the pitlane remains closed for the marshals to remove standing water to be removed from the track.
The drivers will have just five sets of the intermediate tyre, and two sets of wet tyres throughout the entirety of the race weekend.
This may cause a lack of action on track throughout the practice sessions as the teams and drivers will want to preserve these tyre compounds in preparation for potential rain throughout qualifying on Saturday, or the race on Sunday.
10 minutes into the session, and the cars are still contained to the pit lane.
Jack Doohan sits apprehensively in the Alpine garage, scheduled to fill in for Esteban Ocon throughout this FP1 session, as the pit exit remains closed.
The marshals continue to attempt to remove standing water from the track, but it looks like there will be limited running in this session.
And the rain has started again, around 15 minutes into FP1, whilst the safety car tests out the condition on track.
Race Control have noted that the pit lane will open at 51 minutes past the hour, despite the rain seemingly coming down as heavy as before.
Green light and go? Despite race control giving the green light for the 39 minutes that remain in the session, nobody is brave enough to hit the track just yet.
Lewis Hamilton is the first out on track, and tests the waters (literally) on a set of intermediate tyres to install his new power unit.
Hamilton’s old teammate Valterri Bottas is next to hit the Canadian track, with 35 minutes left in the session, claiming that he thinks he “can do inters” after starting on wets.
The Brit reports that, understandably, “grip is very low” whilst he creeps around the 14 corners.
Hamilton, Bottas, Norris, Zhou, and Hulkenberg are now all on track.
The track begins to fill up and racing lines begin to dry, all whilst a glimmer of sun welcomes the drivers.
It’s a red flag with 28 minutes to go!
Zhou Guanyu brings an end to the 11 minutes of running as he loses control of his Sauber. He hit the wall at turn five and stops on track.
The Chinese driver gets out of the car and explains his contact with the wall occurred due to the aquaplaning.
The marshalls cleared the track quickly, and with a green flag, the drivers start flooding to the track again to test the conditions.
Lando Norris runs wide at the hairpin, as all the drivers grapple with the wet conditions.
Bottas, Hamilton, and Verstappen sit in the podium spots with 20 minutes to go.
Jack Doohan, after sitting in the Alpine garage, is told that his session is over, despite only doing one set on the wet tyres.
Sainz goes fastest with a 1:27.485, followed by Leclerc and Tsunoda, ahead of Magnussen, Hamilton, Perez, Ricciardo, Russell, Gasly, and Bottas.
Daniel Ricciardo overtakes his teammate, popping into P3 momentarily, before being replaced by Perez.
Leclerc heads back into the garage, in P2 just 0.075 seconds behind his teammate.
Lance Stroll waves at his Canadian fans, with the sun out, and water drying from the track.
10 minutes to go, and no cars on track, everyone’s taken to the pits.
With 5 minutes left in the session, drivers have popped on the slicks, and are sticking closely to the racing line in an attempt to improve their times.
Norris and Verstappen scramble for grip as the champion leader follows the McLaren.
Leclerc loses control of his Ferrari and slides off the track at the first corner, but he continued without any difficulties.
2 minutes to go and Doohan is nowhere to be seen. His installation laps at the circuit will be his only running this weekend.
So much action on the last lap as Verstappen, Ricciardo, Bottas, Stroll, and Sargeant take turns going off track or through the grass.
The chequered flag on FP1, with Norris, Sainz and Leclerc rounding off the top 3.
Hamilton, Verstappen, Piastri, Gasly, Bottas, Perez, and Russell completed the top 10.
