Lewis Hamilton suspects Ferrari has made a good step with its upgraded turbocharger at the Canadian Grand Prix after Sebastian Vettel split the two Mercedes in Friday practice.

Hamilton was fastest in second practice at Montreal, with Vettel 0.257s behind in second place and Nico Rosberg a further 0.269s adrift in third. Hamilton wasn't sure why his team-mate struggled so much but said Ferrari's pace looks genuine.

"It looks like today Nico didn't have the pace but I think on the long run he looked like he was OK," Hamilton said. "But the Ferraris look very quick. I think they've got a new turbo so I think they've picked up their pace in a straight line. Whether or not they've turned their engine up to test that, I assume they probably have.

"But we will see tomorrow I guess. Hopefully we're going to have a bit of a race here. These tyres, the supersoft wears out a little bit more than the rest but the tyres aren't particularly that soft so I don't think it's going to be a particularly challenging race if it stays dry in terms of looking after the tyres."

Asked about Red Bull's apparent lack of pace after both Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo were over 0.9s off his time, Hamilton added: "I don't know if it's normality, I think Red Bull are still there. I don't know how they're doing, I'm sure they've got time to improve. It's practice day so I don't really know what to say about it."