Sebastian Vettel claimed his sixth pole position of the season in Canada, but for a change, there was a different driver in the P2 slot.
Despite losing out to the Ferraris in the first two segments on Saturday afternoon, Vettel came to the fore when it mattered most, posting a 1:13.014 to secure pole position.
Fernando Alonso had to settle for second place, 0.185s behind the Red Bull driver. Felipe Massa qualified in third place ahead of Mark Webber in P4.
Qualifying 1
Conditions were a lot cooler than Friday for Saturday's qualifying, with an ambient temperature of 22C in overcast conditions, with the track at 25C. There was no sign of rain, but there were big predictions that it would come tomorrow during the race.
McLaren's Martin Whitmarsh said that they had compromised the McLaren wing settings for what they had been told was a 60% chance of rain on Sunday.
Coming into the session Mark Webber had missed morning practice after a problem with his KERS, and the emergency replacement for the less-than-100% Sergio Perez, Pedro de la Rosa, had damaged his Sauber against the unforgiving Montreal walls.
Out on track it was Nick Heidfeld who set the first meaningful P1 lap time of 1:17.120, which was quickly reduced by Vitaly Petrov to 1:16.083, Paul Di Resta took it into the 1:15s with a 1:15.879, Mark Webber edged it down to 1:15.732 before Fernando Alonso took it into the 1:14s with a 1:14.994.
Lewis Hamilton had taken the three previous Canadian pole positions but it looked like he was going to have to give way today right from Q1 as Sebastian Vettel reduced P1 to 1:14.703, and then 1:14.318 and finally 1:14.011 before retiring to the pits.
A few drivers were having lary moments out on track, none more so than Jaime Alguersuari who flat-spotted his tyres and took to the grass in his attempts to avoid the drop with the new teams. At the same time, the new teams were trying very hard to get inside the 107% mark.
With just a second between the supersoft (option) and soft (prime) tyre, they didn't have the usual time advantage of running a different compound. All the front runners were on primes. Pedro de la Rosa was also on the option in his bid to make it out of Q1 and was rapidly re-acquainting himself with the wall in the process.
Ferrari's strong weekend continued with Fernando Alonso slotting into P2 behind Vettel and then beating him with a 1:13.822, Felipe Massa posting the P3 time.
With five minutes of the session to run it was 15. de la Rosa, 16.Maldonado, 17.Kobayashi, 18.Kovalainen, 19.Alguersuari and neither Karthikeyan or D'Ambrosio were inside 107%. Alguersuari finally put a lap together to go P16 and then Pedro de la Rosa took P16 back off him. This pushed Kobayashi back into P18 and the drop zone.
In the dying moments of the session Karthikeyan managed to make 107%, Kobayashi jumped up into P14 relegating Alguersuari to P18 and Jarno Trulli finally got ahead of Lotus team-mate Heikki Kovalainen.
So out went: 18.Alguersuari, 19.Trulli, 20.Kovalainen, 21.Liuzzi, 22.Glock, 23.Karthikeyan, DNQ D'Ambrosio
No surprises as to who went out, but both Mercedes cars looked to have lost the power edge they enjoyed in Friday practice when people had been talking about a potential Rosberg front row start.
Qualifying 2
The big teams strapped on the red-walled super soft tyre from the start. Ferrari had figured out that they could be made to last three laps and that the fastest lap would be the third lap.
Vitaly Petrov started off proceedings with a P1 time of 1:14.354. Mark Webber snuck inside it with a 1:14.344, Jenson Button reduced it to a 1:14.209 before Sebastian Vettel put this all in proportion with a 1:13.690.
And Red Bull were supposed to be slow in Canada...
Mark Webber put in a 1:13.654 to spice things up but there was no holding Vettel back and he reclaimed P1 with a 1:13.486, a new lap record around the circuit Gilles Villeneuve. However this time round it was Felipe Massa's turn to put in a last minute Ferrari grab for P1, with a superb 1:13.431.
With five minutes left to run the front-runners were pretty confident that they weren't going to be beaten and though Button and Schumacher were only in P7 and P8, neither went out again. And neither needed to.
The danger positions with five minutes to go were: 9.Petrov, 10.Heidfeld, 11.Kobayashi, 12.DiResta, 13.Sutil, 14.Buemi, 15.Maldonado, 16.de la Rosa, 17.Barrichello.
Kobayashi, as might have been expected, was having a wild time of it with several excursions across the grass and four-wheel drifts towards the barriers. In the last five minutes there was a shuffling of the places, but no moves into the top ten. Paul Di Resta jumped to P11 and outqualified his experienced team-mate for the sixth race out of seven.
So out went: 11.Di Resta, 12.Maldonado, 13.Kobayashi, 14.Sutil, 15.Buemi, 16.Barrichello, 17. De la Rosa
Again, no surprises.
Qualifying 3
Into the final qualifying session and McLaren didn't look like they were heading for a front row start, even though Lewis Hamilton chalked up the first sub 1:14s lap at 1:13.945.
Felipe Massa soon dispatched that with a 1:13.820. Vettel made an absolute nonsense of this with a stunning 1:13.014 provisional pole lap. Fernando Alonso slotted into P2 and Felipe Massa in P3.
After the first runs it was: Vettel, Alonso, Massa, Webber, Hamilton, Button, Petrov, Heidfeld, Rosberg with Michael Schumacher only making one attempt and yet to set a time. When he came out his lap was only good enough for P8.
The cars all took their second runs with a definite sense of anti-climax. Because as they all crossed the line, they all improved their times and all stayed in the same position, with the notable exception of Nico Rosberg who got ahead of Jenson Button for P6 and Nick Heidfeld who outqualified Vitaly Petrov in P9.
Sebastian Vettel duly achieved his best qualifying in Canada, but with two DRS zones and the Ferraris performing much better on full tanks, he will have his eyes in his rearview mirrors from the moment the lights go out tomorrow.
Mark Webber's KERS had given up, one of the reasons he could only make it into P4 and might be slow away after some poor starts this year. Alonso had an amazing start in Spain and he and Massa have the chance of stirring Italian hearts with a 1-2 early on.
A lot depends on the weather. With McLaren supposedly setting their cars up for wet conditions, the extra wing will not have been so evident a disadvantage, with them able to use DRS in qualifying. But in the race, if it is dry, they might have a torrid time. All eyes will be on the skies on Sunday.
FH
Times
01. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m13.014s
02. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m13.199s + 0.185
03. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m13.217s + 0.203
04. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m13.429s + 0.415
05. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m13.565s + 0.551
06. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m13.814s + 0.800
07. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m13.838s + 0.824
08. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m13.864s + 0.850
09. Nick Heidfeld Renault 1m14.062s + 1.048
10. Vitaly Petrov Renault 1m14.085s + 1.071
11. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m14.752s
12. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Cosworth 1m15.043s
13. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m15.285s
14. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m15.287s
15. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m15.334s
16. Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1m15.361s
17. Pedro de la Rosa Sauber-Ferrari 1m15.587s
18. Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m16.294s
19. Jarno Trulli Lotus-Renault 1m16.745s
20. Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 1m16.786s
21. Tonio Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth 1m18.424s
22. Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1m18.537s
23. Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 1m18.574s
24. Jerome D'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth 1m19.414s
