F1 Paddock Notebook - Canadian GP Saturday

With a round-up of the additional news and notes from Montreal on Saturday following qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix, Crash.net F1 Editor Luke Smith brings you his paddock notebook.

- Sebastian Vettel charged to the 54th pole position of his F1 career on Saturday, edging closer towards Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher ahead of him on the all-time record list. Lewis Hamilton still remains out front, holding 20 more poles than Vettel.

- The result marked Ferrari’s first pole position in Canada since the 2001 race when Michael Schumacher topped qualifying. It also came 40 years on from Gilles Villeneuve’s famous win at his home race in Montreal.

- Vettel produced two laps good enough for pole in the end, improving by 0.012 seconds on his final lap. Valtteri Bottas in P2 and fifth-placed Kimi Raikkonen both failed to improve with their second efforts.

- Lewis Hamilton struggled to get into a good rhythm throughout qualifying despite his affinity and stunning record at the circuit, having won here and started on pole here six times. Hamilton locked up at the hairpin on multiple occasions, and said he felt Mercedes did have the pace for pole, but just couldn’t tap into it.

- Boosted by its engine update, Ferrari was particularly potent in the final sector featuring the back straight and the run from the final chicane to the finish line.

- Brendon Hartley recorded his best qualifying result since the second race of the year in Bahrain, finishing 12th. The New Zealander said after the session he felt 11th was the best Toro Rosso could do, but expects a bigger boost from his engine update in the race.

- Teammate Pierre Gasly was forced to switch to the old-spec power unit due to an issue, allowing him to complete a back-to-back comparison, with his feeling being that there was a big gain between the two specs. However, he fears he may need to take a penalty at Paul Ricard if the updated power unit cannot be repaired.

- Charles Leclerc made it through to Q2 for the fourth race in succession, a feat that had not been completed by a Sauber driver since Adrian Sutil in 2014.

- There was less good news for Williams, though, who languished to its fifth double Q1 knockout in seven races this year.