Qualifying summary - Vettel takes pole in Canada!

Sebastian Vettel had taken pole position ahead of the Canadian

As soon as the session got started, we had a car break down. Romain Grosjean's car looked like a smoke grenade as his exhaust just spewed out big plumes of smoke in the pit lane as soon as he pulled away. Unfortunate for Grosjean, who looked good in FP3 as he finished in P9, but must now start from last place.

At the front, there weren't any surprises. Ferrari took one-two, with Sebastian Vettel leading the way. Behind them were both Mercedes cars, and the Red Bulls were in five-six. Business as usual.

The first wrinkle of Q1 was Toro Rosso. They were expected to do well with their new big Honda upgrade, but only one of them performed. It was actually under-pressure Brendon Hartley who looked very good indeed, securing eighth place, eight places above his teammate Pierre Gasly, who couldn't even make it out of Q1.

Speaking of which, Marcus Ericsson broke his car on a hot lap, as he kissed the wall coming out of a chicane, messing up his suspension. The Swede couldn't do a lap after and got left behind in Q1, along with Grosjean, both Williams cars and the aforementioned Pierre Gasly.

Q2 started with Ferrari and Mercedes both on the ultra softs, which means that both of the teams will start on that very compound. The rest of the field opted for the softer hyper softs, meaning that Ferrari and Mercedes either are unconvinced by their pace on the hyper softs, or they're simply planning ahead to the race.

Max Verstappen took advantage of this. The Dutchman already flew to P1 in all three practice sessions, and he repeated that trick in Q2 again. Yes, he was on softer tyres, but he also beat his teammate Daniel Ricciardo by almost four-tenths of a second. That was until the last second of the round, when the Aussie suddenly leapfrogged Verstappen and snatched P1 from his teammate.

At the back, a painful outing from McLaren. Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne got P14 and P15 respectively, which is simply not good enough. The slowest of the Renault-powered cars, slower than one of the two Honda-powered cars, and even slower than Charles Leclerc's Sauber. Back to the drawing board for the Woking-based team.

In the business end of qualifying, Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas came out flying early. Bottas put down a 1:10.8 early, but was quickly trumped by a tenth by Vettel. Verstappen and Ricciardo were quick, but just lost too much time on the long straight in the third sector of the track because of the Renault engine's lack of straight-line speed. 

In the last two minutes, everyone came out of the pit lane for their final hot lap. Sebastian Vettel improved on his hot lap with an even hotter lap, breaking the track record in the process.

In second place, Valtteri Bottas, who was incredible in qualifying, once again beating Lewis Hamilton. In third, somehow, Max Verstappen, who made up for his severe lack of pace on the straight with some supreme driving in the first two sectors.

Vettel will hope to make the most of his pole position by taking home a win again for Ferrari after a four-race drought. Lewis Hamilton is in fourth, so he could be making up some big points in the championship tomorrow. We can't wait to see what happens then!