Hamilton takes Canadian pole in close qualifying
Lewis Hamilton has secured pole position for the Canadian Grand Prix during today's qualifying session. He narrowly beat his Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg who will start from second, ahead of Sebastian Vettel who stranded at less than two tenths from pole.
Qualifying got off to a dry start, and many were out early to get a lap in as mixed weather was to be expected, just like it was in FP3.
This progressed reasonably well, but several drivers were seen hugging various walls, including the right side wall on the exit of turn 4. Haryanto for instance broke his right rear wheel on it there, subsequently limping around the track before parking it at the beginning of the back straight.
Palmer was also seen using all centimeters of the track. He took off some green paint of the Champions' Wall, while also coming extremely close to mimicking his team mate's accident from FP3 at turn 7. He had just enough of a margin while Magnussen was unable to take part in qualifying as the Renault team could not get his car ready in time.
A very light drizzle at the very end of Q1 also interrupted some running at the end, and eventually prevented any lap improvements in the dying minutes.
Q2 started off in the same fashion as Q1, with a lot of cars out on track as soon as possible. Just two minutes later, the red flag was brought out as Carlos Sainz came into contact with the Wall of Champions. The touch wasn't particularly violent, but the rear toe rod broke, making it impossible for him to continue. He slowed down going over the grass on the right hand side of the track, before coming to a stop not far past the finish line.
The session was stopped for around 10 minutes, allowing the crane the car away to a safe spot behind the safety barriers. Marshalls chose to do that on the same side as the incident while Toro Rosso mechanics were walking down the pitlane to go collect the car there. When the realised they wouldn't get it back, they all returned empty handed.
As the session restarted, all cars were out on new ultra soft tyres except both Mercedes, who soon proved fastest on used ultra softs. While both drivers were extremely closely matched, Ricciardo went third fastest, 4 tenths down on Hamilton but 2 tenths ahead of Bottas, Verstappen, Raikkonen and Vettel. Massa, Hulkenberg and Kvyat also put themselves into the top ten, before returning to the pits.
In the second runs, Alonso was the only man to change the top ten, going through to Q3 in 10th and ousting Kvyat who will additionally take a 3-place grid penalty.
In Q3, Hamilton immediately missed the final chicane as he tried to make the best possible exit to start his lap. He wisely decided to go straight on. Mercedes though were running a warmup lap after the outlap to get the tyres to optimal temperature, so no real trouble for him, apart from the strange sight of seeing him go off track in a warmup lap.
The real flyer actually proved impressive, putting in a 1:12.8, just 6 tenths down on the all time lap record. Nico Rosberg was just hundredths down, with Vettel also less than two tenths behind Hamilton's first flying lap. Verstappen was initially ahead of his team mate, but Ricciardo refused to give up easily, and went considerably quicker on the next outing, slotting in behind 4th and continuing his run of qualifying domination at Red Bull this season.
Thus, Hamilton maintains his momentum from Monaco and is set to start the Canadian Grand Prix from the best possible place. Rosberg is also right up there in second, with Vettel's pace clearly impressive and a testimony to the progress Ferrari have made with their power unit, thanks to this weekend's upgraded Turbo.
