After Fernando Alonso had beaten Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg to top spot in the morning session at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, the Silvers Arrows returned to the top of the timesheet in Montreal in the afternoon as  Hamilton went quickest, ahead of team-mate Rosberg. Sebastian Vettel was third for Red Bull Racing.

The Mercedes pair traded fastest times throughout the session but Hamilton eventually prevailed, logging a lap of 1:16.118 to put almost two tenths of a second between him and Monaco Grand Prix winner Rosberg.

After finishing almost a second shy of the frontrunners in the morning session Sebastian Vettel improved in the afternoon, taking his Renault-powered Red Bull Racing RB10 to within half a second of Hamilton’s time, although the champion set his supersoft tyre-shod lap later in the session than his rivals after being restricted to his team's garage with gearbox issues. 

Vettel’s team-mate Daniel Ricciardo had a difficult afternoon, however, and finished in 12th position. He later admitted he had "work to do overnight".

“The driving was good today, but looking at the time sheets we’ve got some work to do," he said. "We got some good references to go by and we need to put some work in tonight – I enjoy driving around here and there are a lot of fans in the grandstands. It seems that we’re close to some of the other teams, so we’ve just got to extract as much from the cars as we can over the weekend.”

Fourth place went to Kimi Raikkonen. After finishing 1.3s adrift of team-mate Alonso in the morning session, the Finn eclipsed the Spaniard in the second outing, finishing five hundredths of a second ahead of Alonso. Raikkonen’s also suffered a spin at the hairpin, but after he had set his fastest time.

With Alonso fifth, sixth and seventh places went to the Williams pairing of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas, the duo again confirming the strength of the Mercedes power unit on Montreal’s long straights. Massa recovered from a troubled morning session to set a best time of 1:16.774, just over a tenth ahead of Bottas.

They were followed by the McLarens of Kevin Magnussen and Jenson Button, with the final top 10 spot going to Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne.

Elsewhere there were problems for Marussia as Jules Bianchi completed just three laps in the second session. The Frenchman had already encountered trouble in the morning when he clipped a wall, damaging the rear right of his car.

Romain Grosjean’s session was ended early by a gearbox issue and Daniil Kvyat also stopped early after completed just nine laps.  

Caterham, too, had difficulties in the second session with Marcus Ericsson stopping on track at Turn 3, while Kamui Kobayashi suffered two offs during the 90 minutes.

2014 Canadian Grand Prix – Free Practice 2 Times
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:16.118 
2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:16.293 0.175
3 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 1:16.573 0.455
4 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:16.648 0.530
5 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:16.701 0.583
6 Felipe Massa Williams 1:16.774 0.656
7 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:16.893 0.775
8 Kevin Magnussen McLaren 1:17.052 0.934
9 Jenson Button McLaren 1:17.059 0.941
10 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:17.180 1.062
11 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:17.626 1.508
12 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 1:17.644 1.526
13 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:17.712 1.594
14 Sergio Perez Force India 1:17.819 1.701
15 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:17.868 1.750
16 Adrian Sutil Sauber 1:17.964 1.846
17 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber 1:18.340 2.222
18 Max Chilton Marussia 1:18.693 2.575
19 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:18.732 2.614
20 Kamui Kobayashi Caterham 1:20.244 4.126
21 Marcus Ericsson Caterham 1:22.418 6.300
22 Jules Bianchi Marussia 1:32.127 16.009