Patronise F1

With the predicted rain staying away from the circuit on Saturday, conditions seemed perfect for the drivers, at least early on. The first session began with plenty of drivers on track, perhaps trying to make up for a lack of dry running so far this weekend, or perhaps looking to maximise the phenomenon where here the Bridgestone tyres seem to work better after a lap or two rather than straight away.

Either way, the track was often congested in the early stages, though not with the form of Sebastian Vettel, who had a heavy crash in the morning practice session and sat out qualifying. He was joined on the sidelines early on by Jenson Button, who suffered a continuation of his poor Canada weekend to date with gearbox issues which left him stranded at the bottom of the timesheets.

With two already gone, the Force India pair of Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil and the second Toro Rosso of Sebastien Bourdais were the remaining drivers eliminated after the first session, allowing Nelson Piquet Jr to scrape into Q2 by the narrowest of margins in 15th. Bourdais was to suffer further problems later, when he was penalised for an earlier gearbox change, and the Frenchman will start last, sharing the back row wih his team mate.

The second session saw track problems reveal themselves for the first time. A number of drivers were being caught out and spinning, and the blame was apportioned to a rather alarming crumbling of the tarmac surface, something which the Montreal track has suffered from before, but perhaps not to this extent. The conditions for the race tomorrow may well be far worse.

In Q2, the impressive runners were Nico Rosberg, Mark Webber and Rubens Barrichello, the former two spending much of the session in the top five, while Barrichello managed to qualify for the final session for the first time all year, putting Button in the shade even factoring in the problems suffered by the Brit.

While they impressed, the Toyotas, David Coulthard and Kazuki Nakajima joined Piquet in being eliminated, with the Renault man's job security now looking more fragile than ever after another underachieving session. The loss of Nakajima was something of a surprise, after the Japanese man had run well in the morning session and in Q1, but he does seem to have something of a problem with qualifying, while Jarno Trulli, who managed three spins over his two sessions, missed the cut for the top ten session for the first time all season.

The runners for the final session lost one of their number before the session even began, as Webber lost control of his Red Bull on the breaking track and hitting the wall hard enough to break his suspension. A mistake, but by no means the only driver to fall victim to the increasingly poor conditions in the qualifying session. A shame for the Aussie, given that as the rest of the session turned out, he may well have been in with a chance of a very good grid slot indeed.

The final session itself was a belter. While Kovalainen ran wide early on as the track continued to degrade, Raikkonen set the early pace. He was soon elbowed out the way by Hamilton, and then by Fernando Alonso's Renault, an early indication that the grid may have an odd look to it.

In the final moments, Robert Kubica managed to haul his BMW up onto pole position with a storming lap, but he was kept from his second P1 of the season thanks to an even better lap from Hamilton, who grabbed pole at the last by almost half a second. Raikkonen, even after experimenting with both tyre compounds, ended up third, with Alonso holding on for 4th ahead of a great 5th for Nico Rosberg, securing his second third row start in a row.

The second drivers at the big three struggled, with Massa 6th for Ferrari, Kovalainen 7th for McLaren, and a struggling Nick Heidfeld 8th for BMW, over a second off his team mate, while Barrichello and the absent Webber rounded out the top ten.

A grid lined up with bags of potential then, as Hamilton guns for a repeat of his maiden win at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve last year, Kubica hunts his own maiden win, and Kimi and Ferrari look to stage a fightback. Add in the dark horses of Alonso and Rosberg, the recovery drives of Massa and Kovalainen, and the pace that Webber doubtless has but was unable to ultimately show, and the 70 lap race tomorrow promises to be a classic.

The only stumbling block remains the track itself. Many drivers, Webber included, were critical of the conditions after the session, and circuit workers are resurfacing the hairpin overnight in an attempt to stop the breaking up problems re-emerging during the race tomorrow. Either way, severe cracking may well preclude any overtaking possibilities the track had in store.

Though that probably won't bother the championship leader one bit.

* - Eliminated in second session
** - Eliminated in first session