Vettel snatches pole from Hamilton as Ferrari come to play in Canada; Leclerc P3 while Bottas struggles in P6, Verstappen bounced in Q2

For the first time since Bahrain all the talk of Ferrari’s hypothetical straight line speed advantage over Mercedes finally materialized as Sebastian Vettel pipped Lewis Hamilton for pole at Circuit Gilles-Villenueve in Saturday qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix. The Mercedes man had looked supreme throughout Q3 and it once again appeared that Hamilton would crush whatever fragile dreams of competitiveness Ferrari harbored by setting purple sector after purple sector. But Vettel and the fabled Sucderia had the last laugh today when the German four-time champion put in a blistering effort as the seconds ran down in Q3 to best Hamilton by two-tenths of a second. It was Vettel’s first pole since the German Grand Prix last year and a much needed boost for both the team and Vettel, who has looked less than fully confident at times this season. Obviously, Seb will also need to covert his pole into a victory on Sunday to jump start what is beginning to look like a hopeless campaign for Ferrari against the might of Mercedes. And look for Hamilton, who starts along side him in P2, to try every trick in his book to overhaul Vettel early and once again show that he and his Silver Arrow are an unstoppable force.

Vettel’s teammate Charles Leclerc qualified P3 and seemed to lose a little confidence as the day wore on. But it was nothing like the travails that afflicted Valtteri Bottas, Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate and nearest points rival. With Hamilton having won the last two contests on the trot after Bottas’ victory in Azerbaijan, the Finn is starting to look a little wobbly in the face of the Englishman’s  onslaught. He spun early in Q3 and, while he was lucky to keep his car out of the walls of this tight street/park circuit on Montreal’s Notre Dame Island it put him on the back foot for the rest of the session. He was forced to pit and try again behind a long train of other drivers making their own last ditch runs and couldn’t properly prepare his tires for maximum performance. After a relatively ragged lap, Bottas could do no better than the sixth fastest time. That saw Renualt’s Daniel Ricciardo and Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly better Bottas’ Mercedes, with Riccardo driving beautifully to earn fourth on the grid and Gasly slotting in at P5. But Gasly’s senior teammate, Max Verstappen, found himself on the outside of the Top 10 looking in, as the Red Bull team gambled on Medium tires and lost in Q2 when the Dutchman was slowed by traffic in the crush of fifteen cars attempting to qualify. Vertappen changed to the Super Soft red-banded tire for a final shot at a fast lap good enough to progress to Q3 but Haas’ Kevin Magnussen had a wicked shunt after bouncing of the Wall of Champions and then smashing into the pit wall down the start-finish straight to bring out a Red Flag and put an end to Vetrstappen’s chances of advancing. Vertsappen wound up P11 but will move up at least one position due to Magnussen’s car needing to be rebuilt overnight. And it should be more than a little exciting to see Mad Max try and fight his way up through the field for a good result tomorrow.

Ricciardo’s Renault teammate Nico Hulkenberg had a decent effort to qualify P7, while the improving McLaren’s of Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz also completed Q3 and will start P8 and P9 respectively. And, as mentioned above, while Magnussen had the tenth fastest time he”ll almost certainly start from the pits come race day after binning his Haas and giving his mechanics a massive overnight rebuild job to even be able to make the start.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Canadian Grand Prix:

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race airs live at 1:30PM Eastern on ABC here in the States. Hope to see you then for a proper Hamilton-Vettel duel and to find out whether Ferrari can get themselves back into this 2019 Championship after Mercedes has essentially had it all their own way so far.