World championship leader Sebastian Vettel secured his sixth pole position of the season, fending off the Scuderia drivers to the top spot at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Vettel’s lap time of one minute, 13.014 seconds placed him ahead of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa. This was the strongest qualifying performance by Ferrari so far.
His Red Bull Racing team-mate Mark Webber had to settle for a position on the second row of the grid after securing fourth.
Despite being tipped as one of the favourites to fight for pole and race victory in Canada, McLaren endured a rather low-key day, with last year’s winner Lewis Hamilton in fifth position while team-mate Jenson Button was seventh, behind Mercedes GP’s Nico Rosberg.
As for Michael Schumacher, he will start the Canadian Grand Prix in eighth position.
Both Renaults made it into the top-ten this round, with Nick Heidfeld qualifying in ninth position ahead of Vitaly Petrov.
It was another strong qualifying performance from Paul di Resta, who secured P11 for Force India. This is impressive considering team-mate Adrian Sutil could only managed P14.
Pastor Maldonado was another Formula One rookie keen to make an impact in the sport with the Venezuelan driver outqualifying the more experience Rubens Barrichello by a margin of four grid positions. The Williams drivers will start in P12 and P16 respectively.
Following Sergio Perez’s qualifying crash in Monaco, Pedro de la Rosa will represent the Sauber team in Canada. The reserve driver put in a decent performance despite his lack of running on track, making it to Q2 and finishing around three tenths off team-mate Kobayashi in P17.
Jarno Trulli outqualified Lotus team-mate Heikki Kovalainen, as both drivers were again out in Q1. They were joined by Tonio Liuzzi in the Hispania, who managed to outpace both Virgin Racing, with Timo Glock in P22 and Jerome D’Ambrosio last behind Narain Karthikeyan.
As for D’Ambrosio, the Belgian failed to qualify for the race after finishing nearly half a second off the 107 per cent time. But he will be allowed to take part, as the Virgin Racing driver is fast enough when compared to his lap times set in the opening practice session.
Qualifying times from Montreal:
1. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m13.014s
2. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m13.199s
3. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m13.217s
4. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m13.429s
5. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m13.565s
6. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m13.814s
7. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m13.838s
8. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m13.864s
9. Nick Heidfeld Renault 1m14.062s
10. Vitaly Petrov Renault 1m14.085s
11. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m14.752s
12. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Cosworth 1m15.043s
13. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m15.285s
14. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m15.287s
15. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m15.334s
16. Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1m15.361s
17. Pedro de la Rosa Sauber-Ferrari 1m15.587s
18. Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m16.294s
19. Jarno Trulli Lotus-Renault 1m16.745s
20. Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 1m16.786s
21. Tonio Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth 1m18.424s
22. Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1m18.537s
23. Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 1m18.574s
24. Jerome D’Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth 1m19.414s
107 per cent time: 1m18.989
After taking his sixth pole position from seven races, Red Bull Racing driver Sebastian Vettel has said that he will expect a close fight for victory. Autosport.com has the story.
Sebastian Vettel is expecting a close fight for victory in the Canadian Grand Prix after securing yet another pole position on Saturday.
The Red Bull driver will start from the top spot for the sixth time in seven races, after beating Ferrari drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa in today’s qualifying.
Vettel secured pole despite the Montreal circuit expected to be the least favourable for Red Bull this season.
The world champion reckons, however, that the race will be very difficult.
“I think we made up some ground from last year. We know this is not our strongest track, we love high-speed corners. But we had the fastest package today so we can be confident.
“The runs we had were very confident. Surely it is never easy and it will not be easy tomorrow, like in the last two races. We are ready to fight so we will see what happens tomorrow.”
He added: “At this stage everyone looks after themselves and in qualifying you know it is between you and your car. Tomorrow is a different ballpark.
“We have seen in the last two races in particular that it will be close, and we don’t expect anything other than that. Tomorrow is a new day and a new adventure.”
Vettel also conceded that Red Bull cannot afford to have any KERS issues in the race if he is to fight for victory, after team-mate Mark Webber was forced to missed final practice because of problems with the system.
“If I have a problem then I have no choice, I cannot stop them. This weekend I had no problems and it looks as good as it can be. With our KERS there is a bigger risk than the Ferrari engine blowing up, but Mark had a problem this afternoon. I think they can be able to fix it tonight but we have to wait and see.”
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa were pleasantly surprised with the pace of their cars on Saturday, after qualifying second and third respectively ahead of Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix.
The duo trailed only the championship leader Sebastien Vettel in the final qualifying session.
“We are two tenths, 1.5 tenths behind RBR, which is a much better result than we expected and a much better result than the first six races,” Alonso said after qualifying.
“We are happy with the performance of the car, it has been very smooth the whole weekend and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.
“The car felt competitive from yesterday and today,” he added. “It is a good feeling being back to the top positions, close to fighting for pole, and having Felipe in the top three too is a nice team result.”
Massa, who lines up third as he continues his most impressive weekend of the 2011 season so far, was similarly enthusiastic.
“It was a good qualifying for us straight away,” he said. “It looks like we are competitive compared to other teams who were in front of us before, like McLaren.
“We have seen that our car is competitive and that we’re much closer to Red Bull, compared to previous races, so it was a good qualifying, a good day for us. We need to be ready and we hope we can have a good day tomorrow as well.
The strong performance in qualifying was partially down to McLaren drivers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton being compromised by their wet-weather set-up. But Alonso was unconcerned by the possibility of being caught out by rain in tomorrow’s race.
“The forecast so far is for rain tomorrow and we haven’t run in wet conditions with the whole field together,” he pointed out. “We cannot forget McLaren, despite their qualifying position, with the set-up they have and the speed they have, they have a lot of downforce and in wet conditions they could be very competitive.”
“Conditions are likely to change, so maybe this was one of the less important qualifying sessions of the year, but tomorrow everybody’s cards are on the table and we definitely have a chance to win the race.”
Source: Autosport.com
Red Bull Racing’s Mark Webber was frustrated to qualifying in fourth position with the issue of the KERS unit proving to be troublesome for the Australian. Autosport.com has the details.
Mark Webber fears that he may be left without KERS again in the Canadian Grand Prix – after losing the power-boost for qualifying in Montreal.
The Australian’s efforts to secure pole position were wrecked by the 0.3-0.4 seconds deficit that he was forced to face after his KERS malfunctioned on Saturday in Canada.
And although the team still has time to fix the problems ahead of Sunday’s race, Webber is pessimistic about what can be done.
“It is a major headache,” he said when asked by AUTOSPORT about his feelings of finding a fix for the race.
“It is just tough for the guys, they are doing everything they can, but we cannot continue [to have problems like this].
“I think we were pretty confident of getting it fixed for qualifying on the back on FP3 for me. But I drove down the pitlane and they said no KERS – I thought, ‘how the hell do you know that already if I haven’t even touched anything?’ We tried to get it back into life for Q3 but it wasn’t having any of it.”
Webber says the biggest problem with Red Bull Racing’s KERS is that it is so unpredictable as to when it will work or will not work – which makes it harder to find a cure to the issues it has faced.
“It is incredibly unpredictable, and it is unreliable – that is a no-brainer,” he explained. “Sometimes you are going okay with it, and other times we are struggling a little bit with it. It is unpredictable.
“The consistency we have clearly got to get on top of it, because we have had weekends where it was very good, like the Turkish GP where it worked very well, but it is a challenge for us.”
Lewis Hamilton felt he got the absolute maximum speed available from his McLaren in Canadian Grand Prix qualifying, and reckons the team’s fifth and seventh places on the grid prove it is losing ground to Red Bull and Ferrari.
Hamilton and team-mate Jenson Button were unable to get involved in the Montreal pole fight, and were 0.5 seconds and 0.8s respectively off the pace.
“We are just very slow this weekend. It appears that the other guys have maybe made a step forward, but I really don’t know,” said Hamilton.
“We’re still not in the worst position, but I would like to be higher up. This was just the maximum the car was able to do. This weekend we’re just lacking speed.
“It’s a long race, the weather’s up and down, anything could happen here so we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Hamilton was confident he could not have got anything more out of the car.
“I feel happy within myself. I don’t think I’ve ever driven the car so hard in my life, really,” he said.
“I was just on such a ragged edge. I think I even touched the wall at one point.
“I tried to use the tow of another car because we’re so slow on the straight. We have the wrong gearing, so we’re 10km/h – maybe more, maybe 12-13km/h – slower on the straight. So we’re losing a couple of tenths just on the back straight.
“But I pushed as hard and that’s as good as we can get.”
He fears that polesitter Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull are beginning to look uncatchable, and that McLaren’s form has stagnated.
“Vettel’s gone, he’s on his way,” Hamilton said. “They’re very, very hard for us to catch at this rate.
“But I’m still positive and I’m still hopeful. I don’t know when we’ve got anything coming, but I really, really hope sometime soon we’ll have something positive come to the car.
“We didn’t really come with any upgrades, the car’s not really progressed a lot. While we’ve been bringing a lot of different updates every now and then, they’re not making the car faster generally.
“So we’ve been at a bit of a standstill for a while. The guys are working as hard as they can, and it’s just a matter of time.”
Button agreed that McLaren lacked ultimate pace this weekend, and felt he had exacerbated the situation with mistakes on his best lap in Q3.
“It’s always frustrating when you’re not quick,” he said. “We didn’t have the pace that we thought we would.
“We always knew that our race pace was better than qualifying, but we’re surprised to be where we are.
“My last run was looking really good, and then I just over-drove really, starting locking up and losing time.
“A lot can happen here, this is a circuit where you can overtake. We’ve just got to hope that our race pace is better than our qualifying.”
Source: Autosport.com
After setting some decent lap times in the practice sessions at Canada, the Mercedes GP team could only manage sixth and eighth fastest in qualifying but the team remain hopeful for the race as Autosport.com reports.
Mercedes GP is staying positive after falling a little short of its practice-session promise in qualifying ahead of Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix.
Having been fastest and third fastest in first practice on Friday, Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher qualified sixth and eighth on Saturday afternoon.
Mercedes’ usual strategy of sending its drivers out for one run only in third qualifying failed to produce the desired results, with Schumacher in particular struggling to get his Pirelli super softs up to temperature.
The seven-time world champion also had a brief mechanical problem during his fastest lap, denying him the ultimate performance he had been building towards.
“We can be quite happy with today’s qualifying. I had lost drive momentarily after turn four during my last lap but otherwise I had a clean lap,” Schumacher told reporters.
“We will have to analyse why that happened, but all went pretty well other than that. We have developed our set-up in the right direction over the weekend, and the long runs looked quite good this morning, so we should be OK in the race.”
Rosberg, who lines up sixth and outqualified McLaren’s Jenson Button, praised the team’s “good progress” and promised he has more in the tank for tomorrow.
“I’m pretty confident that we can do better in the race, certainly compared to our pace in Monaco,” he said. “We’ve put in a lot of work on race performance and I hope we can translate that tomorrow. It’s good to have saved a set of new options as well.”
Both team principal Ross Brawn and Mercedes motorsport vice-president Norbert Haug felt that the one-run strategy have put their drivers in an advantageous position for tomorrow’s race – so long as the weather doesn’t upset the team’s plans.
“We had a very solid qualifying session today with both the drivers and team doing a good job,” said Brawn. “We have given ourselves a decent chance with the tyres and have a set of new options left for both drivers for the race.”
“With two runs in Q3, we might have been able to climb a position or two on the grid,” added Haug. However, a fresh set of tyres for tomorrow will be even more beneficial – if the race stays dry, of course.”
Both Lotus Renault GP qualified in the top ten ahead of tomorrow’s Canadian Grand Prix as the team bounced back from a nightmare qualifying in Monaco.
Nick Heidfeld lines up ninth on the grid after outqualifying team-mate Vitaly Petrov by just 0.023s, despite carrying a wet set-up as the paddock faces uncertainty over tomorrow’s racing conditions.
“Nick and Vitaly are carrying different levels of downforce,” confirmed Renault chief mechanic Alan Permane. “When it rains, we’re only allowed to change the cooling of the cars. Nick will carry more downforce than Vitaly tomorrow and, depending on the weather, this could be a very strong position to be in.”
Heidfeld, who had to go out again at the end of the second qualifying session to fend off the Force India of Paul di Resta, was “extremely happy” with his performance.
“We made some minor adjustments with the car today and certainly got what we could have done from it,” said the German veteran. “I’m also happier with how I’m driving on the supersoft tyres; yesterday I was not satisfied but today I really got used to them, and I think that showed through my lap times.”
“Obviously you always want to be higher up than P9 but being in the top ten is satisfying and we will try to improve on this tomorrow by securing a good pace and gaining some places.”
Petrov admitted to being caught out by the lower track temperatures – during Saturday they were up to 15 degrees lower than on Friday – but was satisfied just have delivered a better performance than two weeks ago.
“The track temperatures were much lower than yesterday and it was very difficult to warm-up the tyres properly throughout qualifying,” he said. “As a result, I was lacking grip out there and I lost a bit of time during my quickest lap.”
But the Russian is hopeful that Canada’s typically changeable race conditions could play into his hands in tomorrow’s race.
“Montreal is almost always a crazy race and the safety car is often a part of it,” he added.
“Also, the weather forecast is looking unsettled so we can expect anything. As a result, tomorrow will be a case of adapting ourselves to the conditions and taking every single opportunity.”
Source: Autosport.com