Two weeks can be a long time in Formula One, and Lewis Hamilton underlined that on Saturday in Montreal with a strong performance to take pole position for Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix.
The triple world champion had one of his weakest displays in recent years in Monaco, where set-up problems left him only 14th quickest in qualifying.
He could only recover to be seventh in the race.
On Saturday at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, there was no repeat of those issues as a lap of 1 minute, 11.459 seconds gave him the 65th pole of his career.
The Mercedes-GP driver has won five times in Montreal before, including the past two years, and he will be confident of repeating that feat on Sunday and cutting championship leader Sebastian Vettel’s 25-point lead at the top of the drivers’ standings.
Vettel, who has yet to finish outside the top two in a race this season, was second fastest, 0.330 seconds slower than his title rival.
The second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas was third, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari, with the two Red Bull Racing cars of Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo completing the top six on the grid for the race that begins at 10pm UAE time.
Farther down the grid, it was a reality check for Fernando Alonso as the double world champion could only qualify 12th in his McLaren.
The Spaniard had missed the previous race in Monaco as he took part in the Indianapolis 500 in the United States, where he had been fifth in qualifying and had led at one stage before an engine failure curtailed his hopes of winning the IndyCar event.
Back in F1, Alonso was limited by the lack of power in his McLaren’s Honda engine and was eliminated in the second part of qualifying.
Another driver to have a disappointing day was Canadian Lance Stroll, who was only 17th in his Mercedes-powered Williams in his home race.
To rub salt into the wound for the 18 year old, his Williams teammate Felipe Massa was seventh fastest, with his best qualifying time 1.3 seconds faster than what Stroll could muster.
gcaygill@thenational.ae
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