Canada – Qualifying: Hamilton lightning strikes in Montreal!
Lagging behind the Ferraris on Saturday morning, Lewis Hamilon finally clinched the 65th pole position of his career and equalled Brazilian legend Ayrton Senna on the Gilles Villeneuve circuit in style. The competition could do nothing.
After a Friday where Mercedes and Ferrari shared the top four positions, Ferrari outperformed its German rival during the third free practice session, but for how long exactly?
Q1: Mercedes in the lead and Wehrlein in the wall
If Carlos Sainz Jr. sets the initial benchmark in Q1, the Ferrari drivers quickly make their mark by occupying the top two positions, Räikkönen 0.2 s. ahead of Vettel, with ultra-soft tires. In 3rd position, we find Alonso’s McLaren before the Spanish world champion is overtaken by the two Force India drivers.
10 minutes before the end of Q1, the Mercedes respond on ultra softs: Bottas takes the 1st position from Vettel before Hamilton beats his own teammate. At that moment, it’s a 100% Mercedes battle as Bottas crosses the line again with the provisional best time of Q1, with Ferrari having chosen to set all their times on red-walled tires.
Verstappen confirms the trend from Free Practice 3 by positioning himself 4th, less than half a second behind Bottas’ best time, 0.1s behind Vettel who was then 3rd.
With 1 minute remaining in the first part of qualifying, yellow flags are waved in the first sector due to the German Sauber driver Pascal Wehrlein going off track, hitting the wall after braking on the grass and spinning in turn 1.
Noteworthy are the good performances of Grosjean (11th) and Massa (5th) while their teammates were knocked out at the end of Q1.
BREAKING: ELIMINATED DRIVERS, Q1
16 VAN
17 STR
18 MAG
19 ERI
20 WEH 📸#CanadianGP 🇨🇦 #Quali pic.twitter.com/786rkdrRnA— Formula 1 (@F1) 10 juin 2017
Q2: Mercedes confirms ahead of Ferrari who resists
Hostilities open very quickly in Q2 with Mercedes drivers swiftly taking the top two spots. Unlike in Q1, the Ferrari drivers fall in line and equip their cars with ultra-soft tires with purple sidewalls to chase the Silver Arrows in this second part of qualifying.
With 6 minutes left in Q2, almost all drivers return to their pits to equip their cars with new tires. Alonso, meanwhile, is called back to his garage to fix a technical issue, before rejoining the track like all his fellow drivers… Except for Vettel, who opted to keep a set of tires compared to his competitors and therefore chose not to drive again on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
At the end of Q2, the Mercedes dominated the field over the Ferraris and the Red Bulls, the third force on the grid. Furthermore, both Force Indias once again reached Q3, with Ocon thus dispelling the memory of his bad Monaco weekend two weeks ago.
At the very end of Q2, the Russian Kvyat hits the wall, puncturing his tire and even reaching the structure of his right rear wheel.
BREAKING: ELIMINATED DRIVERS, Q2
11 KVY 📸
12 ALO
13 SAI
14 GRO
15 PAL#CanadianGP 🇨🇦 #Quali pic.twitter.com/8387KUX1vW— Formula 1 (@F1) 10 juin 2017
Hamilton lights up all his opponents in a memorable Q3
At the green light of Q3, Vettel’s Ferrari is the first to set off, ahead of Hülkenberg’s Renault, the only French car competing in this Q3.
In his first flying lap, Vettel makes a slight mistake, without which he wouldn’t have been able to do anything against Lewis Hamilton’s phenomenal lap that is under 1 minute and 12 seconds! Bottas also manages to get ahead of the Ferraris and slips into 2nd place, more than 0.3 seconds behind his triple world champion teammate.
Despite everything, the German from Ferrari does not give up and does everything to dethrone Hamilton: the former Red Bull driver failed in his second attempt by only 0.004 seconds behind his main rival at Mercedes.
The last 4 minutes of Q3 promise to be spectacular with Hamilton going out for his second stint on new tires while Vettel returns to his garage to fit a third set of new tires in Q3, a rare occurrence in Formula 1, the same set saved thanks to the Q1 time set on super soft red-walled tires.
Unfortunately for the German, he fails to improve his time, while Hamilton widens the gap with a time of 1:11.459 and takes pole position!
Lewis Hamilton thus equals the number of pole positions of his idol Ayrton Senna, 65 poles for each of these two legends of motorsport.
The Briton will also receive a special gift at the end of his qualifying session.
Un @LewisHamilton ému aux larmes reçoit le vrai casque d’@ayrtonsenna 👏🙏#CanadianGP pic.twitter.com/jIwlayZvQI
— La F1® sur CANAL (@LaF1SurCanal) 10 juin 2017
The results of this qualifying session for the Canadian Grand Prix:
Résultats #Qualifications #CanadianGP 🇨🇦 #F1 pic.twitter.com/8u5fl4V1q7
— F1CLASSEMENT (@F1CLASSEMENT) 10 juin 2017
