Friday Sessions: Ferrari still playing catch up despite fastest laps on Friday

MONTREAL, Canada -- Montreal offered up the tightest Friday practice session of the season, with just under a second splitting Charles Leclerc in first place and Lance Stroll in tenth, while the top three were separated by just 0.134s. Ferrari held a 0.134s advantage over Valtteri Bottas' Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton finished his session in the wall.

So is this the turning point in the season Ferrari was hoping for? Based on all the data we saw on Friday, not quite.

The anomalies compared to recent Friday practice sessions were very much the performances of the Mercedes and the Red Bulls, and not that of Ferrari. Ferrari's pace was good, and showed some promise over recent rounds, but there…