F1 Canadian Grand Prix: Hamilton notches sixth pole of the season

Lewis Hamilton secured his sixth pole position of the F1 season at the Canadian Grand Prix on Saturday, beating Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg by three-tenths of a second.

Lewis Hamilton lapped Montreal's Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in 1:14.393 during his first run to take provisional pole position, ahead of Nico Rosberg who was vocal in his disappointment with his lap. Neither of the drivers improved when they put on a fresh set of super soft tyres, maintaining the status quo at the front.

A rain shower in FP2 and two red flags in FP3 made qualifying a little hard to predict, although many expected Ferrari to mount a serious challenge to Mercedes. As it turned out, the German outfit prevailed with ease, with the closest Ferrari of 2007 F1 champion Kimi Raikkonen six tenths behind in third place.

His teammate Sebastian Vettel dropped out in Q1 as ERS engine issues sidelined him to the back of the pack. Williams Felipe Massa joined him in the list of high-profile causalities in Q1.

Meanwhile, Mercedes-powered cars enjoyed the straight-line speed advantage - all clocking in excess of 330 km/h on the longest straight - of their power units with Williams (with a single car), Lotus and Force India all making it into the final leg of qualifying.

Leading the charge was Valtteri Bottas who jumped both the Lotus drivers with a last-gasp attempt to book a spot on the second row of the grid, alongside compatriot Raikkonen.

Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado locked the third row of the grid for Lotus and would be looking for a strong result, after a troubled weekend in Monaco a fortnight ago.

BOTH FORCE INDIAS IN Q3 AS RED BULL CLING TO BOTTOM OF TOP 10

Nico Hulkenberg improved by almost half a second on his final flying lap to take seventh place ahead of the Red Bull duo of Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat. Renault has focused their efforts entirely on improving the reliability of their power unit since a troubled start to their 2015 campaign, and it wasn’t a surprise to see the RB10s struggling at this low-downforce track.

Sergio Perez was the 10th quickest to round off a strong qualifying session for Force India. The team’s deputy team principal Bob Fernley is expecting both cars to finish in points in tomorrow’s race.

Earlier in Q2, both Toro Rosso drivers fell prey to the three-round qualifying format, with Carlos Sainz Jr again out-qualifying Toro Rosso teammate Max Verstappen. The latter has accumulated grid drops worth 15 positions and will have to take a time penalty since the entire grid drop can’t be served in this race.

McLaren’s Jenson Button did not take part in qualifying as the engineers changed the Honda engine on the back of the MP4-30.