Verstappen masters wet qualifying at Canada, Hulkenberg second

F1 Grand Prix, GP Canada, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve

Varying conditions leading up to an extremely wet track at the end of qualifying saw Max Verstappen take pole position, having mastered the entire session. Fernando Alonso seemed to be the closest challenger throughout but he ended third after being pipped by a very happy Nico Hulkenberg.

Running has been eventful so far at Ciruit Gilles Villeneuve and the start of qualifying was more of the same as Ghuanyu Zhou immediately discovered something was wrong with his Alfa when he left the pitlane. As he limped around the track and eventually parked the double waved yellows obviously prevented others to go very quick, forcing the race director to stop the session.

Zhou then opted to return to the track and slowly return to the pitlane. As he got instructions from his team he noted "the more buttons I press the worse it gets". Still, he made it back, and right when he got pulled into the box, both Red Bulls, Williams and Ferraris immediately came out of their boxes to start queuing up at the end of the wet pitlane.

14 minutes and 33 seconds remained on the clock when the session resumed 10 minutes past the initial starting time. As the first drivers returned to the track, Sergeant immediately reported rain in Turn 2, exactly why many had been very eager to go out early as they wish to be ahead of worsening conditions.

The weather and track conditions certainly made qualifying very tricky early on with Turn 3 and 4 seemingly very slippery while the back hairpin and straight had a clear dry racing line.

In these conditions drivers opted to lap as if it was a race, going on lap after lap after lap while trying to find themselves a clear stretch of track. Verstappen had the early upper hand, then Alonso went fastest on his second flying lap, followed by another timesheet topping laptime by Verstappen with 7 minutes left on the clock.

Norris at the time sat third, folowed by Hamilton, Albon, Leclerc, Hulkenberg, Magnussen, Perez and Ocon. Stroll was down in 12th and Russell even further behind in 17th.

As times continued to further improve, Alonso topped the timing sheet with 15 seconds left on the clock. Verstappen, Norris, Leclerc and Albon followed up though Verstappen shaved another 8 tenths off on his final lap in Q1 to topple the Spanish Aston Martin driver.

Bottas shot up to 7th to secure a spot in Q2. Piastri made a similar improvement to go through while Zhou ended up dead last. Stroll and Hulkenberg were the slowest to make it through.

At the start of Q2 a dry line had formed over nearly the entire circuit. Norris said "we could get away with a slick" while Leclerc was denied an immediate pitstop to switch to slicks, the team asking him to do one timed lap first. Interesting decision given that more rain was expected in 5 minutes.

As Stroll went off in Turn 4 without any obvious damage, Albon did risk the slicks immediately and went fastest in S3. Norris meanwhile did the switch that Leclerc wanted while Verstappen went for slicks right after his first timed lap on intermediates.

Rain restarted 9 minutes from the end of the session, just at the same time as Albon went to top the timing sheet in 1:19.471. He improved further one lap later to 1:18.725 as Alonso went second fastest in 1:19.776 on intermediates.

Two minutes later Verstappen went second fastest on his third lap on soft tyres. Norris moved up into third on his very first on softs.

As the rain eased off with more "heavy rain" expected about 2 minutes from the end of the session, 2 more minutes were left for everybody to secure their spots in Q3. All were on softs except for Perez woi opted to switch to fresh intermediates. Leclerc found himself in trouble down in 11th after getting his best lap eliminated for track limits while Perez didn't really get anywhere close to his team mate, struggling on intermediates in 12th.

Two minutes from the end Hamilton, Leclerc, Magnussen, Bottas and Russell pitted and had just returned to the track on fresh intermediates. It was all for nothing though as nobody still improved, dropping out a very frustrated Leclerc and triggering another disappointed reaction on Christian Horner's face.

No more slicks at the start of Q3 with rain intensifying and the track getting worse and worse by the minute.

Verstappen was out on track first and set the benchmark with 1:27.059. Alonso was closest on his first lap at 0.2s and Hamilton third at 0.5s. The Dutchman shaved off another full second on his second lap followed by Hulkenberg shooting up into second place.

Oscar Piastri on the other hand was a bit eager on the throttle on the exit of Turn 5 leaving him to reverse into the barriers and cause the session to be red-flagged.

With 7 minutes and 11 seconds left on the clock, Alonso sat third, followed by Hamilton, Russell, Ocon, Norris, Sainz and Piastri. Albon hadn't been able to set a timed lap so he was 10th.

Those final minutes really were futile as it had become simply too wet for any improvement, Most went out for a lap or two but realised it wasn't going to make any different, resulting in an empty track two minutes form the end. It settled yet another pole for Verstappen, a surprising second for Haas's Hulkenberg and former champions Alonso and Hamilton set to start on the second row in tomorrow's Canadian Grand Prix.