position at the Canadian Grand Prix with team-
mate Nico Rosberg.
Hamilton put a messy final practice behind him, in
which he was slowest of all, to take his sixth pole
in seven races this year by 0.309 seconds.
Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen was third as team-mate
Sebastian Vettel was only 16th following a hybrid
system failure.
It was a powerful statement from Hamilton after
losing out on victory so cruelly in the last race in
Monaco.
Hamilton leads Rosberg by 10 points in the
drivers' championship standings ahead of
Sunday's race at 19:00 BST.
A strategy error from his Mercedes team in the
closing stages in Monaco dropped him from a
dominant lead to third at the flag, and Hamilton
has looked uncomfortable out on track in Canada.
Although fastest in both practice sessions on
Friday, Hamilton also made several errors,
including a crash in torrential rain.
The world champion also failed to set a
representative lap time in final practice on
Saturday morning after struggling to generate tyre
temperature on both types of tyre.
But he put his troubles behind him in qualifying.
Neck and neck with Rosberg in the first and
second sessions, he put in a strong lap on his
first run in final qualifying to put himself out of
reach of Rosberg. Neither man improved on their
second laps.
"It felt amazing," Hamilton said. "It wasn't the
easiest of days. P3 was quite tough. I didn't get
any laps, mostly my fault but I got the set-up
where I wanted it to be.
"I won my first grand prix here and to come back
and finally get another pole is very special."
Rosberg said: "I was really on a roll, it felt really
good and then the end did not come together at
all. I had less rear grip on the first set especially.
But fair play to Lewis and in the race is tomorrow
there are still some good chances so it is not over
yet."
Valtteri Bottas's Williams was fifth from the Lotus
of Romain Grosjean.
It was by far Lotus's best grid position of the year
and
the team's strong performance was underlined
by team-mate Pastor Maldonado, who starts right
behind the Frenchman in sixth.
Force India's Nico Hulkenberg made it six
Mercedes-powered cars in the top seven, ahead of
the Renault-engined Red Bulls of Daniil Kvyat and
Daniel Ricciardo and the German's team-mate
Sergio Perez.
McLaren's Jenson Button will start the race 19th
after not taking part in qualifying following a hybrid
system failure in final practice.
Only Toro Rosso's Max Verstappen will start
behind Button. The Dutchman qualified 12th but
has a 15-place grid penalty - 10 for using a fifth
engine and five for crashing with Grosjean in
Monaco at the last race.
He will also have to serve a 10-second penalty at
a pit stop in the race to make up the balance of
the penalty.
Verstappen's penalty promotes Button's team-
mate Fernando Alonso one place to 13th on a
difficult weekend for McLaren. Alonso missed
nearly all of final practice because he needed an
engine change and is now on his fourth and final
engine, with penalties inevitable later in the
season.
Vettel, crippled by a lack of power, missed out on
displacing McLaren's Fernando Alonso for a place
in the second part of qualifying by just over
0.3secs.
The four-time world champion was latterly handed
a five-place grid penalty and given three penalty
points on his licence for overtaking under red flags
in final practice.
"It is what it is," Vettel said. "We'll see what we
can do in the race."
No comments:
Post a Comment