• Canadian Grand Prix - Qualifying
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Vettel dominates qualifying to secure Canadian pole

ESPN Staff
June 9, 2012
Sebastian Vettel took pole by 0.303s in Canada © Press Association
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Sebastian Vettel secured his second pole position of the season with a dominant performance in qualifying at the Canadian Grand Prix.

Vettel took pole by 0.303s from Lewis Hamilton in second and Fernando Alonso in third after two attempts in Q3, improving on his second run to set a 1:13.784 - comfortably the fastest lap of the weekend.

Ahead of qualifying it looked like it would be a much closer battle, but Vettel set the fastest time in all three qualifying sessions while using less tyres and completing less laps than his rivals. Vettel's Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber was fourth fastest, 0.562s off the pole position lap, with Nico Rosberg fifth and Felipe Massa sixth.

Lotus failed to show the pace expected of them before the weekend with Romain Grosjean seventh ahead of a fantastic performance by Paul di Resta to put his Force India eighth on the grid. Michael Schumacher also failed to live up to expectation after he failed to make the line for his final lap, which left him ninth and over a second off the front of the grid. Jenson Button's qualifying misery continued after he just sneaked through to Q3 but then didn't attempt a super-soft lap to challenge for pole. He instead opted to complete a lap on the soft tyres which will put him on a different strategy for the race.

Kamui Kobayashi just missed out on a place in the top ten by 0.008s and will start 11th ahead of Kimi Raikkonen who struggled with a differential problem and failed to make Q3. Nico Hulkenberg will start 13th ahead of a good effort from Daniel Ricciardo in the Toro Rosso. The two Williams finished 16th and 17th with Pastor Maldonado clouting the 'Wall of Champions' on his final lap and breaking the right rear suspension on his car.

Jean-Eric Vergne was the disappointment of Q1 after qualifying 20th with a string of scrappy laps. That put him behind the two Caterhams of Heikki Kovalainen and Vitaly Petrov on the grid, which were 0.7s shy of Ricciardo and a place in Q2. Pedro de la Rosa made the most of HRT's bespoke aero package for Montreal to get ahead of the Marussias of Timo Glock and Charles Pic, while team-mate Narain Karthikeyan will start the race from last on the grid.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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