Ferstappen pole position in difficult conditions in Canada, second Alonso

Max Ferstappen has the upper hand for the Canadian GP on Sunday (June 19, 9:00 p.m.). In difficult rain conditions, the Dutchman took pole position from Red Bull with a time of 1:21.299.

Amazing in the rain and Alonso climbing Alpine to second ahead of Sainth and Hamilton. Leclerc will start from last position, 13th Perez, who was eliminated in Q2.

As qualifying testing began, the flooded track and large spray clouds made it clear that qualifying tests would be judged in the final minutes of each of their three seasons, when the track was at its driest.

It all started with the tires completely covered in rain, and when the rain stopped the cars were full of gas. The drivers’ aim was to stay on track, keep their tires at the ideal temperature – in an atmosphere of just 12 degrees Celsius – and gradually improve their times.

This is how it happened, and in each period the ranking – even in the top positions – changed almost every second. In the third and final leg, which decided pole position in Ferstappen’s favour, the Dutchman was unbeaten and ultimately reduced his time to 1:21.299.

Carlos Sainth seemed to be able to keep up with him and made the fastest pass of all at the end of the first part of the stretch. The Ferrari driver lost little time in the second half, but slipped at the exit of the last corner.

This enabled Fernando Alonso, who meanwhile put in an amazing final lap at great risk, to find a way to get between Ferstappen and Saint with the top two Formula One cars and be on the front row at tomorrow’s start.

In the meantime, by Season 3, the racing line was pretty much dried up – so much so that George Russell decided to put on slick tires, the soft rubber for dry! However, the Brit ran into a water snag at Turn 2 and went off the track, his tires freezing and falling back to 8th place at the start – while Lewis Hamilton was 4th with the intermittent rain.

The third row was occupied by the born-again Haas with the excellent performances of Kevin Magnussen and, above all, Mick Schumacher, who fought for his best starting position of his career in F1 under unbearable pressure and in very difficult conditions. His best finish was also 10th for Guaniou Chou, although the Chinese may face a penalty for ignoring yellow flags in Q1.

Before that, in Q2, there was a switch from full rain tires to intermediate tyres. Alonso started on the second eraser and with excellent results, but on the contrary, Sergio Perez on the Intermediate tires skidded in a couple of places, slipping off the track between turns 3/4 and not making it back onto the turf, forcing the referees interrupt Q2 with red flags for 12 minutes.

It was the second major disqualification from Q2, after Charles Leclerc – who didn’t even take part in the second third because he will start last tomorrow anyway, due to the placement of his fourth engine this year, one more than the regulations allow.

A third loud block in Q2 was from Lando Norris after a problem with the Mercedes drivetrain ended up not giving the Brit time for a fast lap as the track was in its – until then – dry time.

In Q1 on full wet tyres, two drivers who had shown excellent speed in the rain in the third free test – Alpha Tauris Pierre Gasley (possibly with a brake problem) and Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel – retired. They will end up with Leclerc, but also with Yuki Tsunoda, with the other Alpha Tauri, also because of exceeding the limit of available engines with yesterday’s installation of a new powerplant.