Ahead of today's opening session the air temperature is 20 degrees C, while the track temperature is 30 degrees. It is seriously overcast with a 30% chance of rain.

Upgrades for this weekend see Red Bull with a new Front Wing, while at Mercedes the Sidepod Winglet has been removed.

Alpine has a new Rear Wing, Rear Suspension Fairing and Front Brake Ducts, while McLaren has a new Rear Wing (Flap & Endplate) and Beam Wing and Alfa Romeo new Rear Brake Ducts.

At Aston Martin there's a new Engine Cover, Cooling Louvres and Floor, while Haas has a new Rear Wing, Cooling Louvres and Floor Edge. Alpha Tauri has new Front Wing Flaps and Williams a new Floor, Engine Cover, Mirror, Halo Fairing, Rear Suspension, Rear Brake Duct Winglets and Rear Wing Endplate.

Ferrari has no updates this weekend, probably because they are still getting to grips with the previous package.

Talking of Ferrari, Leclerc is sporting a Gilles Villeneuve tribute helmet, let's hope he doesn't take it too far and attempt to race on three wheels come Sunday.

The lights go green and Verstappen is already waiting at the end fo the pitlane, just ahead of his teammate. Unusual to see the Bulls heading out so early.

As they head out they are followed by Stroll, de Vries and Alonso.

As more drivers head out it is a mixture of softs and mediums.

"Check the grounding and the floor," says Zhou, "it's really stiff, I'm feeling every bump of the track."

"I lost the driveshaft, I don't know what do, no gears," reports Gasly who subsequently stops at Turn 8.

As Bottas goes quickest (18.728), ahead of Stroll, Alonso, Perez and Verstappen, the session is red-flagged.

It's a long stop, and at Mercedes, having sent out both cars anticipating a quick restart, both cars have to be wheeled back to their garages.

Seemingly the track cameras are not working hence the delayed restart. With the session still red-flagged there are 41 minutes remaining.

"Our W14s were waiting at the pit lane exit, but an issue at Race Control has delayed the session restarting," confirms Mercedes. "Was only communicated when the drivers got to the end of the pit lane but both cars have been pushed back to the garage."

"The session restart has been delayed due to issues with the local CCTV," reports the FIA, with 24 minutes remaining. "The local organisers are working to resolve the issue and until that time we can't restart for safety reasons.

"The clock will continue to run down on FP1 and the session won't be extended as there must be 2.5 hrs between FP1 and FP2. We are looking at options to extend FP2."

As it stands, only 12 drivers have posted times, while Ocon and the Mercedes pair haven't even been out.

The FIA confirms that this session will not resume and instead FP2 will be extended by 30 minutes, with the session now getting underway 30 minutes earlier than originally scheduled at 16:30 (local time).

Check out our Friday gallery from Montreal here.