Lewis Hamilton headed the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso in a closely-fought Friday practice at the Canadian GP.

Just 0.151 seconds covered the first three cars, with Ferrari's Felipe Massa in third place, while Sebastian Vettel was only 0.121secs further back.

Force India's Paul Di Resta was an impressive fifth fastest ahead of Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi.

McLaren's Jenson Button was ninth, managing only 18 minutes of the 90-minute session because of car problems.

[McLaren] is a top team challenging for the championship. Changing the gearbox should be 30 minutes. It was nearly four hours. It's not good enough

Button suffered an oil leak in the first practice session and it took the team nearly four hours to fix it.

When he did take to the track, he concentrated on race preparation as he sought to make up lost time. He complained over the team radio of a lack of front grip.

Button said: "It's been a tough day. I didn't get many laps in and we didn't get a good feel. But we have the data.

"Lewis was very quick so the car is good. We missed out because we had a gearbox problem and an oil leak problem.

"We didn't really get any set-up work; I was just out there to get a feel for the circuit. But tomorrow is another day and we are still confident we can have a good weekend."

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Hamilton heads Alonso in practice