The defending champion was constantly at the forefront of the times in Montreal, making his first appearance on the calendar since 2019.
Verstappen started the weekend during which he will start his 150th GP with a lap of 0.25 s ahead of the fastest Ferrari, with Fernando Alonso third to overtake Sergio Pérez and Charles Leclerc.
Although the threat of rain was only estimated at 20% for the session, the approaching gray clouds caused a gust of activity on the track as soon as the one-hour countdown began. .
Yuki Tsunoda was followed in windy conditions by Alfa Romeo and Daniel Ricciardo, as only the Williams and Alonso duo initially stayed in their garages.
And of the ones that came out straight, all but Tsunoda and Leclerc (both with soft ones) came up with a set of C4 Pirelli tires of medium yellow wall compound.
The early markers flirted around the low 1m20s and the high effort of 1m19s before Verstappen started to slow down the pace as he clocked a 1m17.991s to place at 1.4s from Lewis Hamilton.
Valtteri Bottas, Ricciardo and Sainz spun around a second adrift of Verstappen before Hamilton reduced to 1m18.613s to reduce the difference to six tenths.
The 20 cars had ventured after six minutes to maximize track time after Thursday evening showers, before Bottas climbed to the top with his 1m17.902s effort.
Verstappen was making a cool lap at the time to reactivate his tires, but then quickly broke the second and third fastest sectors to regain first place with a 1m16.507. This duly decimated Bottas’ time by 1.4s.
The first significant race of Monaco winner Sergio Pérez moved the Mexican half a second behind his teammate until Verstappen made another quick lap.
The RB18 rider completed a clean sweep of the sector at that stage to go down to 1m15.799, initially pushing him 1.2 seconds behind Pérez at the top of the standings.
Verstappen found another nine cents with his next attempt before Pérez reached the top after 14 minutes thanks to a 1m15.660s, which quickly put him four cents ahead.
After the hectic start of the proceedings, track activity virtually ceased after the first third of the session before Pérez and then Verstappen switched to soft tires after 28 minutes.
However, Verstappen quickly returned to Red Bull’s garage, as a failure of the rear stabilizer bar caused his inner wheel to lift.
But after Sainz climbed to the top with a 1m15.441s to place a tenth ahead of Pérez, Verstappen – although he ceded the first and second sectors to his Ferrari rival – set the fastest time of the session.
He ran to his 1m15.158s pace to sit 0.25 seconds above the Spaniard before a final change to midfield for the field as they tried to understand their respective race pace.
Behind Verstappen, who complained about the cut while his renamed Honda engine was greedily consuming its hybrid electric assistance, and Sainz was Alonso aboard his Alpine.
The two-time champion had played fast and loose on the last corner, as an oversteer attack took him directly to the announced “Wall of Champions”.
Perez finished fourth when Leclerc, who retired while leading the Azerbaijani GP last time with a power failure, was half a second behind Verstappen’s drift when he reached fifth place.
Leclerc entered the session with a new internal combustion, but retained a used turbocharger to leave unconfirmed an imminent network penalty at this stage.
George Russell was the sixth fastest aboard his Mercedes, while Lance Stroll started his home race leading a decent Aston Martin in seventh place.
Hamilton, who had complaints about the balance of the rear car when Mercedes ran an experimental solution, split the Astons when Vettel came in ninth.
Ricciardo, meanwhile, completed the top 10 on Pierre Gasly, while Lando Norris finished 12th, but ran 12 laps from his teammate as McLaren spotted a problem with the Briton’s car. .
Alex Albon led Tsunoda and Ocon, whose session was interrupted early by a right front brake fire caused by debris entering the duct.
Bottas led a moderate Alfa Romeo ahead in 16th place, while Mick Schumacher, Nicholas Latifi and Kevin Magnussen completed the order.
According to Canadian tradition, local groundhogs enjoyed a high-risk game of dodging cars as they passed the track.
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