Rosberg beats Hamilton to Canada pole

Mercedes AMG Petronas

Nico Rosberg claimed his second successive pole position after edging out Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton during a thrilling climax in qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix.

Rosberg had been behind Hamilton throughout most of practice and qualifying but in Q3 he stepped up to eclipse his team-mate by just 0.079s.

Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel was third quickest for Red Bull.

Q1 began in bright and sunny conditions, with air and track temperatures at a weekend high of 24 and 46 degrees Celsius respectively.

Only 21 drivers participated in the opening session after Sauber had to change Esteban Gutiérrez’s chassis following his accident in third practice, which means he will have to start from the pit lane.

Sergio Pérez spun his Force India but scraped through the session, although Lotus’s Pastor Maldonado was less fortunate as his E22 stopped on circuit, albeit after he set a time not quick enough to progress.

Q1 came to a premature end as Marcus Ericsson dropped his Caterham on the exit of turn nine and spun into the wall, causing damage to the left rear of his CT05. That brought out the red flags and with 16 seconds of the session remaining it was ultimately not restarted.

Max Chilton was only a tenth shy of progressing through to Q2, with the Brit edging out Marussia team-mate Jules Bianchi by a hundredth of a second. Kamui Kobayashi was 20^th, albeit almost a second behind Bianchi, with Ericsson a further half-second back in 21^st.

Felipe Massa was a surprise pace setter during Q2 as neither Mercedes driver was able to eclipse the Williams racer on option tyres. The second knockout segment was a tight affair with 15 of the 16 runners separated by less than a second after the opening set of runs.

Mercedes quickly assumed their usual position up front, with Hamilton a couple of tenths up on Rosberg, who in turn finished Q2 half a second ahead of Massa.

Ultimately it was Nico Hülkenberg who narrowly failed to make it through to Q3 and will start from 11^th, ahead of McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen and Force India driver Sergio Pérez. Eighth to 12^th in Q2 was separated by just a tenth of a second.

Romain Grosjean was 14^th, with Daniil Kvyat and Adrian Sutil rounding out the Q2 contenders.

Bottas was the first driver to post a time in Q3 with a 1:15.550 but his time was soon beaten by Rosberg, whose 1:14.946 was a tenth quicker than Hamilton, despite the Brit going quickest in the first two sectors. Bottas and Massa occupied third and fourth, ahead of the Red Bull duo of Daniel Ricciardo and Vettel.

Both Mercedes drivers improved across their second run although Hamilton dropped time in the middle sector following a lock up at turn eight, which meant that Rosberg took pole with a 1:14.874, less than a tenth ahead of his team-mate.

Vettel improved to third place, ahead of the Williams duo of Bottas and Massa, with Ricciardo just 0.048s behind his Red Bull team-mate, but such was the competitive nature of Q3 that he ended up sixth.

Fernando Alonso, Jean-Éric Vergne, Jenson Button and Kimi Räikkönen rounded out the top 10.