Vettel on pole for Canadian GP

Sebastian Vettel scored yet another pole position on Saturday, as he beat all his rivals in the Canadian GP’s qualifying session.

The Red Bull driver set the fastest time in his first run and edged out Ferrari’s Alonso by a tenth of a second. Massa was third fastest and will line up on the second row alongside Webber.

McLaren’s Hamilton couldn’t do better than fifth and will share the third row with Nico Rosberg. Button qualified seventh, Schumacher eighth. Heidfeld and Petrov will line up on the fifth row.

How the session unfolded :

Q1

This time there was no waiting game early on. Most of the drivers quickly left the pits to bank in a time.

Sebastian Vettel set the benchmark but faced some fierce opposition from Fernando Alonso. Massa was third fastest. Hamilton and Button completed the top five.

Halfway through this segment, all the drivers had a time on the board. One of them, Jérôme d’Ambrosio, was outside the 107% and not qualified. Alonso’s further improvement meant Narain Karthikeyan also found himself outside of the 107%.

None of the top six drivers came out for another run in the last minutes as Kobayashi, Alguersuari and de la Rosa fought tooth and nail to make it through to Q2.

The Sauber drivers managed to improve, pushing the Toro Rosso driver in the drop zone. He was eliminated alongside Trulli, Kovalainen, Liuzzi, Glock, Karthikeyan and d’Ambrosio. The Belgian – driving a hastily built Virgin after Friday’s crash – failed to meet the 107% requirement.

Alonso set the fastest time ahead of Vettel, Massa and Hamilton.

Q2

The seventeen remaining drivers didn’t wait long before taking the track. Three minutes in, they were all out and ready to post a time on the board.

Vettel, Alonso and Webber set the pace and were extremely closely matched. They were covered by 0.040s. Vettel found some improvement that allowed him to reclaim top spot, 0.1s faster than his teammate Webber. He didn’t stay long at the front as Massa beat him by 0.050s.

Like in Q1, the frontrunners pitted and didn’t come out for a second run.

Di Resta, Maldonado, Kobayashi, Sutil, Buemi, Barrichello and de la Rosa didn’t make the cut.

Massa set the fastest time ahead of Vettel, Webber and Alonso.

Q3

The final shootout promised to be close and the pole contenders wasted no time. They all left the pits within the first two minutes.

Sebastian Vettel was fastest in the first run, putting a hand on pole position. He was two tenths of a second faster than Massa, and four tenths faster than Alonso. Webber was fourth, Hamilton fifth and Rosberg sixth.

The Red Bull driver couldn’t improve his time on his second attempt, but his rivals couldn’t do it either and he took another pole position.