F1 Canadian Grand Prix - LIVE!
Max Verstappen put Red Bull on pole position for the Canadian Grand Prix with Alpine’s Fernando Alonso leaping onto the front row alongside the Formula One championship leader in a wet qualifying on Saturday.
Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz was third fastest on a drying track and seven times world champion Lewis Hamilton fourth for Mercedes on a weekend dominated by talk of ‘porpoising’, or bouncing, cars.
"I still expect it not to be a straightforward race," said Verstappen after the Dutch driver’s second pole in nine races this season. "But today with the tricky conditions we stayed calm and didn’t make mistakes.
"I’m super happy to get pole position and to be back in Montreal."
His qualifying time of one minute 21.299 seconds was 0.645 faster than Alonso’s best.
Sunday’s race at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve will be the first in Canada since 2019 and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is forecast to take place in sunny and dry conditions.
Verstappen has won four of the last five races and leads team mate Sergio Perez by 21 points, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc a further 13 behind.
Double world champion Alonso, the oldest man on the grid at 40, had been fastest in the day’s final practice and said with a grin that he planned to attack Verstappen into the first corner.
Leclerc, on pole in the last four races, will start at the back after collecting engine penalties.
