Hamilton on pole for Canadian GP
Lewis Hamilton claimed his sixth pole position of 2015 in Montreal beating out Nico Rosberg by three tenths of a second in qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix.
Kimi Räikkönen will start third for Ferrari after team-mate Sebastian Vettel was dumped out early in the session due to power unit issues with his car. Fourth place went to Williams’ Valtteri Bottas.
Q1 began with Ferrari encountering problems as Sebastian Vettel radioed through that he was having power difficulties. The team told him there was an issue with his car’s MGU-H and asked him to return to the pit lane.
As expected the Mercedes drivers set the pace, with Rosberg heading Hamilton but only by the tiny margin of 0.002s.
As the first qualifying segment drew to a close it was Vettel and Massa who were in most trouble.
Vettel still had to set a time and seemed to be struggling. His first lap netted him P16 and he scraped across the line just in time for another last-ditch charge. However, without the power to perform he was also chasing a distant target and in the end the best lap of his single run of two hot laps netted him a time of 1:17.344, some 1.5s adrift off the segment’s best lap.
Massa also suffered power problems and like Vettel he could find no way to bridge the gap to the P15 time of 1:17.012 set by Fernando Alonso. Massa’s best time of 1:17.886 was only good enough for P17 ahead of the Manors of Roberto Mehri and Will Stevens and the McLaren of Jenson Button who did not take part in the session owing to power unit problems encountered in final practice.
Q1’s best lap came from Lotus’ Romain Grosjean, who late in the segment popped up with a time of 1:15.833 to finish ahead of Rosberg and Hamilton.
Grosjean’s time, like those of most of his rivals, was set on the supersoft tyre. The only drivers to make it through to Q2 on the soft tyre were the Mercedes of Rosberg and Hamilton, the Ferrari of Kimi Räikkonen in P6 and Williams’ Valtteri Bottas in P10.
Q2 saw Hamilton take control of P1, the defending champion recovering from a difficult final practice session in which he failed to a get a clean run to register a time of 1:14.661, ahead of Rosberg, while this time out Grosjean was pushed back to third place, four tenths of a second back from Rosberg.
Just a hundredth of a second separated Hamilton from his team-mate and the margins were similarly tight in the battle to make it through to Q3.
Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo was the man to claim the final place in the last segment, his time of 1:16.006 beating out Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz by a mere three hundredths of a second.
Sainz was eliminated ahead of team-mate Max Verstappen, who will drop down the grid thanks to a five-place penalty imposed after his Monaco crash and a 10-place sanction for an overnight engine change in Montreal. Thirteenth place in qualifying went to Marcus Ericsson, which will translate to 12th on the grid as Verstappen moves back. Fernando Alonso qualified 14th, while Sauber’s Felipe Nasr was eliminated in P15.
In the opening runs of Q3 Hamilton drew first blood, setting a first-run time of 1:14.393. That was just over three tenths ahead of Rosberg, whose opening effort was a lap of 1:14.702. The German was quickly on the radio complaining that he had no rear grip. His team responded that the tyres were likely to be his worst set and that he could expect better on his final run.
Räikkönen was third, eight tenths of a second down on Hamilton, while fourth place went to Grosjean, who was seven hundredths of a second off the back of the Finn. They were followed by Maldonado, Bottas, Nico Hulkenberg, Daniil Kvyat, Sergio Perez and Ricciardo, with the Australian Red Bull driver opting to stay in his garage during the first runs.
There was no improvement for Rosberg on his final run, however. Despite personal bests in the final two sectors a scrappy opening third left him in P2. Hamilton too failed to improve but his opening lap was enough to secure his sixth pole position from seven attempts this season.
Räikkönen held third with a marginal improvement but Grosjean was pipped for fourth by Bottas whose final run was good enough to beat the Lotus man by eight hundredths of a second.
Maldonado will line up at the back of row three ahead of Hulkenberg, Kvyat, Ricciardo and Perez.
Vettel’s woes were compounded following the session when he was summoned to the stewards’ room, suspected of passing under red flags in FP3. Vettel admitted to overtaking Manor’s Roberto Mehri between Turns 12 and 13 while the flags were out. He was handed a five-place grid penalty and three penalty points on his superlicence.
2015 Canadian Grand Prix – Qualifying
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:14.393s –
2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:14.702s 0.309s
3 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:15.014s 0.621s
4 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:15.102s 0.709s
5 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:15.194s 0.801s
6 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:15.329s 0.936s
7 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:15.614s 1.221s
8 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 1:16.079s 1.686s
9 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:16.114s 1.721s
10 Sergio Perez Force India 1:16.338s 1.945s
11 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1:16.042s –
12 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:16.262s –
13 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1:16.276s –
14 Felipe Nasr Sauber 1:16.620s –
15 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:17.344s –
16 Felipe Massa Williams 1:17.886s –
17 Roberto Merhi Marussia 1:19.133s –
18 Will Stevens Marussia 1:19.157s –
19 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 1:16.245s –
20 Jenson Button McLaren – –
eom/FIA press release
