UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > Hamilton takes mighty pole

Kubica on front row

Qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix saw the appearance of the traditional Circuit Gilles Villeneuve favourite – yes, the track surface began to disintegrate.

Those who wished for rain were therefore presented with another reason for variable grip levels as the struggled to negotiate the more treacherous parts of the circuit, and the final shoot out promised to be an exercise in who managed it best.

Before that, however, we had the elimination rounds to go, with the first casualty known before we began: Sebastian Vettel banged the STR a little too hard in the earlier session, and will start from the pit lane tomorrow.

Despite valiant efforts it was no surprise to see Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil fall at the first hurdle, and Jenson Button found his Honda without a working gearbox – a pity this, as Rubens Barrichello suddenly found the sister car going rather nicely.

The final faller was Sebastien Bourdais, this maybe a bit of a surprise, as he knows this place well.

Into part two, then, and for a while it looked as though Nick Heidfeld would again falter, but a late fast lap put him back up the order. Jarno Trulli had a couple of spins and thus missed out on a top ten place for the first time this year – along with team mate Timo Glock – and David Coulthard and Kazuki Nakajima simply did not get their act together. For the record, 10th to 15th were covered by just three tenths of a second – a measure of how close the midfield is these days

One man who did get his act together was Mark Webber, the Red Bull driver hustling the car around the track with confidence and great pace and finishing the session in fifth place. I say finishing the session, but in fact he didn’t. Webber fell foul of the dodgy surface and tagged a wall at the very end of the session, and was none to pleased about it. One can’t help feeling it was an avoidable mistake – he was safely through after all, and under no threat whatsoever.

With Webber resigned to staring tenth, the battle commenced for the front of the grid. A word for Rubens Barrichello who made it through to the session – the team did the right thing, and appeared to fuel him heavy. He will start a predictable but commendable ninth.

We expected the fight for pole to be between Hamilton – comfortably quickest in both sessions so far – and the two Ferraris, with Kovalainen a possible interloper. Lewis duly went out and set the benchmark, which he proceeded to lower, and it soon became clear that while the red cars were very fast in the first two thirds of the lap, the final segment was losing them bags of time.

Enter Robert Kubica, the fired up Pole gunning for it as the seconds counted down and snatching pole with his final effort – but Hamilton was not finished. The McLaren looked mighty on that final lap, the driver at one with the car and absolutely on the limit – and at the end of the lap, a full six tenths of a second faster than the BMW.

His detractors will find something to the contrary, but this was a truly superb effort by Hamilton and put the rest to shade. Is he running light? Possibly. I suspect no lighter than those on the next row.

Kubica starts a deserved second, and Raikkonen will share row two with Alonso, the Spaniard another on form this weekend.

Row three goes to Nico Rosberg in the Williams, and a lacklustre Felipe Massa, while row four will be occupied by Heikki Kovalainen alongside Nick Heidfeld, a shadow of the front row but a long way behind.

The stage is set for another intriguing showdown, with rain a 0distinct possibility and the Montreal ‘marbles’ waiting to catch out the unwary.

Written: Sat, 07 Jun 2008 18:43:13