Verstappen takes Montreal F1 pole ahead of Hulkenberg

Max Verstappen has taken his fifth pole position of the 2023 Formula 1 season, prevailing in a wet qualifying session at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

Verstappen ended the session over one second ahead of the rest of the pack, but it was the driver in second place that turned heads at the chequered flag.

Nico Hulkenberg bagged a spot on the front row as he impressively dealt with the difficult conditions in Q3 to give Haas a seismic starting point for the Canadian Grand Prix.

Q3 started in wet conditions as the rain, which was present throughout the session, intensified in the break before the final qualifying segment.

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The cars hurried out to set their final laps, knowing that their first attempts would likely be their best time of the day.

Verstappen, the favourite to take pole position after team-mate Sergio Perez failed to advance into Q3 for the third successive race, blitzed the competition to secure pole position.

He was due to be joined on the front row by Fernando Alonso and set up a repeat of the top two from 12 months ago, but Hulkenberg managed to sneak a lap good enough for second – right before a red flag was thrown.

On his second attempt, Oscar Piastri spun his car into the wall which resulted in the suspension of the session.

Once it resumed, the track was deemed too wet by all of the drivers, leading to no other improvements.

With Verstappen and Hulkenberg in first and second, Alonso and Hamilton would share the second row in third and fourth respectively.

The second Mercedes of George Russell was fifth, while Esteban Ocon was sixth fastest for Alpine.

Lando Norris ended up in eighth place, ahead of former team-mate Carlos Sainz in eighth. Piastri was classified in ninth despite crashing out, while Alexander Albon failed to register a lap time in Q3 to end up in tenth.

There were a number of shock exits in Q2 – starting with Charles Leclerc, who was 11th at the end of the session.

Drivers switched to Soft tyres early on in Q2 after a wet start to the session, but Ferrari was keen to set a banker lap on the intermediate tyre with Leclerc.

However, the rain arrived quickly again, but not before a series of drivers were able to improve on their dry weather compounds.

It left Leclerc in the drop zone while Sergio Perez was 12th, marking the fourth time in eight events this year that he has failed to advance into the final segment of qualifying.

Lance Stroll was 13th and was once again unable to match the pace of team-mate Alonso. Kevin Magnussen and Valtteri Bottas were the other dropouts.

Further down the grid, both AlphaTauri drivers of Yuki Tsunoda and Nyck de Vries were exits in 16th and 18th respectively, while Pierre Gasly was left frustrated in 17th.

The Frenchman was impeded by Carlos Sainz on his last lap, leaving him unable to improve his lap time.

Logan Sargeant and Zhou Guanyu were the final two drivers on the timesheet.