Canadian Grand Prix: Max Verstappen Beats Fernando Alonso To Pole In Montreal

It was a masterclass from Verstappen, who looked in a league of his own whenever he competed a lap throughout the session.

Starting from pole, he now has a golden opportunity to inflict maximum damage on Leclerc in the championship, as Ferrari’s dismal run continues following an 80-point swing in Verstappen’s favour in the championship over the last five races.

“I still expect it not to be a straightforward race,” said Verstappen. “But today with the tricky conditions we stayed calm and didn’t make mistakes.”

While Verstappen looked a strong bet for pole in the Red Bull throughout, his team-mate Sergio Perez fared less well and crashed in the second session, ending up 13th.

But although Verstappen was hugely impressive, as always in the wet, arguably the star of qualifying was Alonso, who has looked quick all weekend, wet or dry, and continues to prove at 40 that age has not dimmed his talent – as he has always insisted since he returned to F1 at the beginning of last year.

Quick in the dry in practice on Friday, Alonso continued his form after rain hit the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve for the start of the weekend, and he danced the Alpine around the track, power-sliding it out of the last corner seemingly for fun to out-qualify his team-mate Ocon by 1.585secs.

“We were P1 in FP3 this morning so it seemed we were quick in the wet but it was not really wet at the end, it was almost dry,” Alonso said. “But the car was fast in the dry and in the wet today so it has been a very competitive weekend.”

Hamilton had been out-qualified by Russell for three consecutive races and it looked set to be four until the younger man took a gamble that the track might be ready for slick tyres on the final runs.

The risk did not pay off – Russell ran wide at the second corner on his first attempt, put a wheel on the painted pit-exit line and drifted into a slow spin. He tried again but his first sector was 10 seconds off the pace and the game was up.

Hamilton, who has been spending the week receiving treatment to his back after suffering badly from the Mercedes’ bouncing on the straights at last weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, said: “This past week has been a real challenge and every day working through the pain and getting my body right.

“We are still struggling with the car, so to get top four in those conditions is awesome.

“It is my best qualifying this season and feels similar to my first ever qualifying in Australia in 2007, I was so excited.”