The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal has been good to Mercedes driver and triple world champion Lewis Hamilton and Saturday, it continued to reward him as he took his 65th pole position on the circuit that gave him his very first win in Formula 1.
Lewis’s pole levels him with his idol Ayrton Senna at 65 poles and the British champion was gifted one of Senna’s helmets for his efforts. His teammate, Valtteri Bottas didn’t do too shabby of a job coming across the line in third while the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel secured second and will start from the front row alongside Hamilton.
“Wow, I am shaking,” said Hamilton. “Ayrton is the one who inspired me to be where I am.
“To match him and receive this is the greatest honour.
“For the Senna family to send me this, I don’t posses any of Ayrton’s artefacts, this is the most special thing I have above and beyond all my trophies and everything.
“I am honoured to be honoured by that family and honestly I couldn’t be happier.”
Pole position is certainly important but so is long-run pace and Vettel believes that Ferrari can still win the race despite being over three tenths behind Hamilton in qualifying. Vettel’s teammate, Kimi Raikkonen, will start the race in 4th position after making a small mistake in turn 2 on his final run.
The Qualifying results does reveal a storyline that drifted throughout Friday and Saturday’s practice sessions—an upgraded power unit from Mercedes on a power circuit like Canada could pay dividends and with both Mercedes-powered Force India cars and the Williams of Felipe Massa in the top ten, it is clear the new power unit is working well.
The circuit is known as a power circuit and it is very hard on brakes so the race and long-run pace of the Mercedes and Ferrari could be the ultimate decider on Sunday. Getting pole is great and if Mercedes has the reliability behind their improved engine, perhaps Hamilton can convert that pole to victory with long, competitive stints.
| Pos | Driver | Car | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1m11.459s | – |
| 2 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1m11.789s | 0.330s |
| 3 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 1m12.177s | 0.718s |
| 4 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1m12.252s | 0.793s |
| 5 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull/Renault | 1m12.403s | 0.944s |
| 6 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull/Renault | 1m12.557s | 1.098s |
| 7 | Felipe Massa | Williams/Mercedes | 1m12.858s | 1.399s |
| 8 | Sergio Perez | Force India/Mercedes | 1m13.018s | 1.559s |
| 9 | Esteban Ocon | Force India/Mercedes | 1m13.135s | 1.676s |
| 10 | Nico Hulkenberg | Renault | 1m13.271s | 1.812s |
| 11 | Daniil Kvyat | Toro Rosso/Renault | 1m13.690s | – |
| 12 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren/Honda | 1m13.693s | – |
| 13 | Carlos Sainz | Toro Rosso/Renault | 1m13.756s | – |
| 14 | Romain Grosjean | Haas/Ferrari | 1m13.839s | – |
| 15 | Jolyon Palmer | Renault | 1m14.293s | – |
| 16 | Stoffel Vandoorne | McLaren/Honda | 1m14.182s | – |
| 17 | Lance Stroll | Williams/Mercedes | 1m14.209s | – |
| 18 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas/Ferrari | 1m14.318s | – |
| 19 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber/Ferrari | 1m14.495s | – |
| 20 | Pascal Wehrlein | Sauber/Ferrari | 1m14.810s | – |
I also failed to mention in this article what an amazing lap it was and a record-breaking lap time. Brilliant job Lewis!
I think he also matched Schumacher in number of poles here. I could be wrong.
I believe you’re right…6.
If you don’t mind, you are both wrong, for correctness sake refer to “pole position/the formula 1 wiki/fandom powered by wikia”.
Salvu, they are both correct. Schumacher and Hamilton have six poles at Canada.
MIE, You are right, they “FORMERLY KOWN AS and NC” are/were both right about the number of laps as regards the Canadian GP, so my apologizes to both of them, my bad/misunderstanding what they really were talking about.
Yes…it is 6. I’m also right in saying that Hamilton and Schumacher hold the fastest laps around this track…but no the Schumacher most people are thinking of. ;)
Lewis always the best, it shows the effort he makes in each race. Vettel is not far behind. A few days ago I bought Lewis’s helmet for this race, this helmet replica is amazing.
“It’s a wonderful and beautiful image, and that’s all it needs to be.” –Steve Matchett.
He said it best on the broadcast, and nothing else needs to be said. It was a perfect moment in sports.
I also liked when Matchett said, ” What a touching moment,” and it really was.
Looks like Mercedes found that missing set-up. Could be closer than I thought.
Quali was great to watch, it’s so impressive how the drivers get their act together for the quali laps. I saw FP2 when cars were spinning like tops and clipping the walls all over the place. No such problems in Quali. Did anyone else see the Sky article on why the Mercedes is providing to be such a mission to set up? ‘Peaky Aero’ apparently. They had interview clips with James Allison and Paddy Lowe, both were saying how the car has good peak downforce in the ideal set up and, but that it loses it quickly when the car… Read more »
All formula one cars are always as good as can be (design wise) when it comes to peaking their designated aero down force numbers, the hard bit of the trick (what makes one car better then the other) is for how long on a lap the car will sustain it’s designated aero down force numbers. And, of course they will not mention the (FRIC) suspension, that was what at that time they and red bull thought and believed will solve all of their aero down force number being sustained for the longest around a lap. A note, only my personal… Read more »
Just because I like this sort of thing, I put together a quick stats table to show how Senna and Hamilton got there.
I leave it to you all to draw your own conclusions.
Interestingly, they both had the same number of seasons in an arguably dominant car.