MONTREAL, Canada (AFP) — Lewis Hamilton claimed pole position with a scintillating Canadian Grand Prix qualifying performance on Saturday.
The world championship leader took his first ever pole in Montreal last year and he was even more impressive this time around, clocking a time over six-tenths of a second faster than that of his nearest rival.
It did take some last-gasp heroics though. Hamilton pulled out all the stops on his final lap, making light of the poor track conditions to shove BMW's Polish hotshot Robert Kubica back into second place.
In a thrilling qualifying tournament that took place in bright sunshine, Kubica just could not quite do enough to deny the 23-year-old Briton his eighth career pole position and his second this season.
"It has been a fantastic day for me," Hamilton said afterwards. "In qualifying I felt right at home. The team did a great job in the early stages of each qualifying session. The first lap was a shocker as I nearly went wide at turn one, but the last one was good - similar to last year.
"When I had just begun the lap, the guys told me I was P1 but I had a feeling that Kimi [Raikkonen] was hunting me down so he would have beaten my time.
"I knew I had to stick it up there. I found six or seven tenths on that lap which is incredible."
Hamilton won from the front in Canada last year but even after his electric qualifying lap of 1:17.886, he was not taking a repeat for granted on the tricky, high-speed Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
He added: "As you have seen, the last few races have been difficult, with the experience of leading the race so we can anticipate it will be similar here.
"Also the track surface isn't great so it will make it tricky and I am sure the other guys will push us hard. We will try and do the best job we can and score as many points as possible. We have to make sure we are in the points."
Spain's Fernando Alonso showed his class and will start third on the grid for Renault after a silky smooth final flying lap.
He will be joined on the second row by the strangely subdued Ferrari of Finnish world champion Kimi Raikkonen who never looked entirely comfortable during qualifying.
Nico Rosberg claimed an excellent fifth for Williams, forcing Brazilian Felipe Massa to settle for sixth in the second Ferrari.
Hamilton's Finnish teammate Heikki Kovalainen will start seventh, just ahead of BMW's Nick Heidfeld and Honda's Rubens Barrichello who were eighth and ninth respectively.
Hamilton set the fastest time in a fairly uneventful first mini-session, just ahead of Massa and Kovalainen. The initial qualifying period saw the elimination of Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais; the Scuderia Toro Rosso driver will start from 16th on the grid.
Also knocked out of contention were the Force India pair of German Adrian Sutil and Italian Giancarlo Fisichella, they will start 17th and 18th respectively.
Honda's Jenson Button suffered a gearbox failure and did not complete a single fast lap. The Englishman will share the back row of the grid with Sebastian Vettel, the second Toro Rosso driver.
The young German did not take part in qualifying after damaging his car in the final free practice session. Hamilton was fastest once again in mini-session two, again marginally quicker than Massa.
This time Renault's under-pressure Brazilian driver Nelson Piquet, Toyota's Jarno Trulli and Red Bull's David Coulthard were the first to be eliminated and will start from 15th, 14th and 13th respectively.
The other two drivers not to make the top ten shoot-out' were Japanese Williams driver Kazuki Nakajima and Toyota's German Timo Glock, who will take the 12th and 11th positions on the grid.
Australian Red Bull driver Mark Webber made it through to the final qualifying stage but crashed into a wall after a spin the end of the session - he had to settle for 10th on the grid.
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