Sebastian Vettel claimed his fourth pole position around the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, whilst championship rival Lewis Hamilton faltered in fourth.
Vettel grabbed provisional pole early in the session, setting a new track record in the process. He then bettered this in his final run of qualifying, with a 1.10.764s lap. Valtteri Bottas went second quickest, just 0.093s behind the pole time.
Having led every practice session throughout the weekend, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing‘s Max Verstappen managed to set the third quickest time in Q3, lining him up alongside Hamilton on the second row of the grid. Hamilton had a costly lock-up on the hypersoft tyre in his final run to leave him in fourth.
Kimi Räikkönen was forced to abort his final run in Q3 after running wide early on in the lap, pushing him down in fifth. Sixth went to Daniel Ricciardo, even after he topped the timesheets in Q2.
The best of the rest accolade went to Nico Hülkenberg , although the gap from sixth to seventh was 0.857s. His team-mate, Carlos Sainz Jr., also made it into Q3, finishing ninth fastest. The two Renault drivers were split by Esteban Ocon. Sergio Pérez took the final spot in the top ten.
As the only Haas F1 Team car running in the session, Kevin Magnussen couldn’t manage to make it into Q3, finishing the session in eleventh. Brendon Hartley, amidst speculation about his future in F1, put in a good performance to go 0.412s clear of his team-mate and line-up twelfth on the grid.
For the fourth race weekend in a row, Charles Leclerc made into Q2, beating team-mate Ericsson comfortably. He also finished ahead of both McLaren F1 Team drivers, with Stoffel Vandoorne being outqualified by Fernando Alonso for the twelfth race in a row. They will line up fourteenth and fifteenth tomorrow.
Pierre Gasly was unable to improve on his time to narrowly avoid progressing into the second qualifying session. It was another double elimination for Williams Martini Racing in Q1, with Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin finishing in seventeenth and eighteenth place respectively.
Marcus Ericsson’s hopes of making it into Q2 like team-mate Charles Leclerc were dashed when he made contact with the wall, ending his session early and leaving him to line-up nineteenth on the grid tomorrow.
The only driver not to make it out for qualifying was Romain Grosjean, due to an engine issue before he had even reached the track.
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