Hamilton edges out Rosberg and Vettel for pole

Lewis Hamilton edged out team-mate Nico Rosberg and Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel to take pole position for the Canadian Grand Prix.

With just 0.062s between the two Mercedes drivers after the first run, it appeared to be a straight fight between Hamilton and Rosberg. However, Ferrari still had pace in hand and Vettel produced a good lap to end up 0.178s adrift on a power sensitive circuit.

Vettel bemoaned a lack of traction out of the hairpin and it may have been crucial as Hamilton failed to improve on his second run, leaving the door open for Rosberg. However, his team-mate had already made an error at Turn 1 and backed out of his lap, leaving Hamilton to celebrate a fourth pole position of the season.

Red Bull was also a threat throughout qualifying, with Daniel Ricciardo fourth, 0.3s off Hamilton's time. Ricciardo also hit the wall of champions at the end of his final run, but didn't seem to damage his car or lose too much time as he completed a lap which left him a quarter of a second clear of team-mate Max Verstappen in fifth.

Kimi Raikkonen was sixth having only done one run in Q3, with Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa making up an all-Williams row eight. Nico Hulkenberg and Fernando Alonso make up the top ten, with Alonso enjoying a third consecutive appearance in the final part of qualifying.

Q2 was only three minutes old when the session was red flagged due to a crash for Carlos Sainz. The Wall of Champions claimed its first victim of the weekend as the Spaniard just tagged the wall with his right rear wheel, damaging the suspension and pitching the front of the car into the wall as well. Sainz slid down the grass and stopped just beyond the finish line, with the session having to be stopped in order for the Toro Rosso to be recovered.

Despite the Mercedes-powered cars making a step forward, McLaren remained competitive and were fighting between themselves for a spot in Q3. In the end it was Alonso who made it through as team-mate Jenson Button locked up at the hairpin having been set to progress. Button eventually ended the session 12th behind Sergio Perez who was knocked out by team-mate Hulkenberg at the end, with Daniil Kvyat, Esteban Gutierrez and Romain Grosjean joining Sainz in dropping out.

With Kevin Magnussen not taking part in qualifying as a result of his crash which brought FP3 to a premature end, only five other cars needed to drop out in Q1. Rio Haryanto ended his chances with an error at Turn 4, damaging his right rear tyre against the wall and then spinning across the track and hitting the opposite wall with the left rear.

The Haryanto incident saw the Manor stop on track after trying to limp back to the pits, preventing any further improvements. A few spots of rain had already made progress unlikely, with Jolyon Palmer missing out on a spot in Q2 by just 0.015s. Haryanto’s team-mate Pascal Wehrlein threatened to make it through but was 0.1s adrift of Palmer, but still outqualified the Sauber pair of Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr.

AS IT HAPPENED: Canadian Grand Prix - qualifying

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