Championship leader Nico Rosberg scored his seventh career pole position by edging out his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton in qualifying at the Circuit Gilles Villenueve.
Hamilton, who had dominated practice, setting the fastest time of Friday and then going quickest on Saturday morning, meaning he went into qualifying as the hot favourite at a track in which he enjoyed.
The Mercedes driver had topped both Q1 and Q2 but was outpaced by Rosberg by 68 thousandths of a second on their first runs in Q3 after hitting traffic in the final sector.
Rosberg then made a small improvement on his second run, but it was not necessary as a poor middle sector meant that Hamilton was unable to better his rival’s earlier lap time.
As for the four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, the Red Bull driver was the best-of-the-rest, jumping from sixth to third with a strong final lap.
Williams had looked set to be the closest challenger to Mercedes, but Valtteri Bottas was unable to improve on his final run and ended up in fourth position.
His Williams team-mate Felipe Massa was fifth fastest, just ahead of Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo.
Fernando Alonso was seventh, his Ferrari not quite showing the speed to threaten the top six at Montreal.
Jean-Eric Vergne was fastest of those who only attempted one run in Q3, shading McLaren’s Jenson Button to eighth place by two-hundredths of a second.
Kimi Raikkonen was the slowest of the Q3 runners, securing tenth place on the grid.
All of the top ten will start the race on super-soft Pirelli thanks to new-for-2014 rules dictating that drivers must use the set they set their best Q2 time on.
Nico Hulkenberg missed out on a place in Q3 by just under half-a-tenth and will start in P11.
As for Kevin Magnussen, the young Dane could only managed P12 after failing to improve on his second run.
Sergio Perez, Romain Grosjean, Daniil Kvyat were P13, P14 and P15 respectively, with Sauber driver Adrian Sutil attempting only one run in Q2 as he had used two sets of super-softs in Q1, ending up in P16.
Pastor Maldonado was eliminated in Q1 after his Lotus ground to a halt in the closing stages.
He had just jumped Marussia pairing Max Chilton and Jules Bianchi before his car developed a technical issue.
After the highs of Monaco in scoring championship points, Jules Bianchi was unable to attempt a second run in Q1 thanks to a car problem, while Chilton had to rely on the time posted on his first run because of incidents late in the session.
Kamui Kobayashi was the faster of the Caterhams in P20 after making a good improvement on his final run, although he will be hit with a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change.
Team-mate Marcus Ericsson brought out a red flag with 16 seconds of Q1 remaining after crashing at the exit of the first chicane.
Esteban Gutierrez was unable to participate in qualifying following damage to the chassis sustained in a crash during Saturday morning’s free practice session.
The Sauber team is building up a car around a spare chassis for the Mexican for Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix.
So another Mercedes front row and yet this time, Nico Rosberg is ahead of his team-mate. Race day at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve will be a fascinating battle for supremacy between the Silver Arrows duo.
Canadian Grand Prix, qualifying times:
1. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m14.874s
2. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m14.953s
3. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m15.548s
4. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1m15.550s
5. Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1m15.578s
6. Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1m15.589s
7. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m15.814s
8. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Renault 1m16.162s
9. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m16.182s
10. Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m16.214s
11. Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m16.300s
12. Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 1m16.310s
13. Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1m16.472s
14. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m16.687s
15. Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso-Renault 1m16.713s
16. Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 1m17.314s
17. Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 1m18.328s
18. Max Chilton Marussia-Ferrari 1m18.348s
19. Jules Bianchi Marussia-Ferrari 1m18.359s
20. Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 1m19.820s
21. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari no time
22. Kamui Kobayashi Caterham-Renault 1m19.278s*
107 per cent time: 1m21.052s
*Five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change
Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel admitted that he took more risks to secure third place. Autosport.com has the news story.
Sebastian Vettel says adjusting his driving and taking more risks helped him snatch third on the Formula 1 grid in qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix.
The four-time world champion lagged behind Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo in sixth for most of the final part of the session, but found time on his final run to vault to third and outqualify Ricciardo for only the second time this season.
“The start of that last lap wasn’t great, I didn’t manage to get the first sector right, [but] I tried to take more risks and it worked, sector two was quicker, I found a significantly better line and kept it together until the end,” Vettel said.
“All in all a very good result, the best we could do.
“It was very close – half a second to the Mercedes in front – but four cars within four or five hundredths of a second [behind], so happy to be one of those.”
The German is still finding it tough to get comfortable with the RB10, after dominating F1 under the previous rules cycle, but reckoned a cleaner run through practice helped him to his best qualifying result since March’s Malaysian GP.
“If you look at the record so far I didn’t have the smoothest of races, so it was good to have a clean Friday and Saturday,” Vettel added.
“Fingers crossed we have a clean race tomorrow.
“In terms of fighting with the car it is still not where we want to be.
“It is not like last year I was stepping into dream car and everything was smooth and perfect, I had to work hard as well.
“This year we are not yet ticking the right boxes properly.”
Pastor Maldonado has been reprimanded for failing to leave his steering wheel in his Lotus Formula 1 car after it stopped in qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix.
The Venezuelan came to a halt during Q1 at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve with a suspected car problem.
But having not put the steering wheel back in his Lotus – as required by the rules – after he climbed out, Maldonado was summoned to see the stewards.
In the end it was decided that he would be given a reprimand, which is his first of the season.
A statement issued by the stewards said: “The stewards noted that the car was not left in a dangerous position on the track and therefore a reprimand was appropriate.”
Source: Autosport.com
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso has commented that the car was just not fast enough in qualifying, despite setting the pace in Free Practice 1 on Friday. Autosport.com has the story.
Fernando Alonso says his qualifying lap for the Canadian Grand Prix was on the limit, and that other Formula 1 teams are simply faster than Ferrari.
Although Alonso set the pace in first practice on Friday, the Ferrari was no match for its rivals during Saturday’s grid-deciding session, with the Spaniard and team-mate Kimi Raikkonen ending up seventh and 10th respectively.
Alonso finished nearly a second off polesetter Nico Rosberg, despite what he labelled as a very good lap.
“I think it was the limit,” said Alonso of his seventh place on the grid.
“The lap was very, very good. The lap was surprisingly good.
“Obviously the rest of the cars are faster than us and they went faster during all of qualifying. It’s not like in Q3 they suddenly returned. It was a difficult Saturday for us and it means we were not fast enough.”
Ferrari introduced several updates in Canada, but Alonso said some of them did not make it into the car on Saturday because of the higher temperatures.
The Spaniard is hopeful the team will take a step forward in the upcoming, cooler races.
“The new package worked OK. I felt the car better. I know there are some more things coming in the next races, and they will hopefully put us in a better position.
“Williams was surprisingly good here, and the Red Bulls were very fast. We want to fight for second place in the constructors’ and right now it’s Red Bull in front of us so we would like to finish in front of them tomorrow if we can.”
Raikkonen completed just one run in Q3, but admitted running more would not have made a difference to his grid position.
“It wasn’t a very good lap in the end, but there was only one chance,” he said. “I would have liked to have another go, but it wouldn’t change our position a lot.
“I was sliding around a lot and it was difficult to get the one lap. It was on the edge.”
As for Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, the Australian has admitted that he was frustrated with his ‘scrappy’ lap that cost him a decent grid position. Autosport.com has the news story.
Daniel Ricciardo said he was enormously frustrated with himself after a “scrappy” performance in qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix.
The Australian ended up sixth on the grid, although he was only 0.041 seconds slower than third-placed Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel.
Asked how his Q3 lap had been, Ricciardo replied: “A s*** house! If you want something you can print, it was scrappy!
“I’m trying to cheer myself up. I was a bit frustrated. Being less than half a tenth from three more positions up the grid, that is frustrating.
“I lost quite a chunk in the second sector. The super-soft has been a lot harder to turn on this year, particularly around here. We basically needed a quick out-lap and we had to let a couple of quick guys go through, and there were a couple of guys in front as well.
“It wasn’t a quick enough out-lap and I just tried to fight the car a bit too much when the tyres weren’t quite there to be fought with.
“But I have calmed down now and it is done and I look to the race.”
Prior to Montreal, Ricciardo had outqualified Vettel for four of their first five races as Formula 1 team-mates.
But he denied that seeing Vettel back ahead of him was a major element of his annoyance.
“It’s not only because of Seb. When there is such a small margin between a handful of cars and you are at tail end of that, that is frustrating in itself,” Ricciardo said.
“I made a few mistakes and paid the price. It sucks for me today but that is how it should be.”
Ricciardo acknowledged that the Red Bull drivers needed to be “a little bit” more aggressive in Canada to make up for Renault’s deficit on straightline performance.
“Obviously I probably overstepped it, and sometimes you have to understand when you need to take a little bit of a step back, but you cannot be too nice around here, you have to take hold of it,” he said.