F1 Paddock Notebook - Canadian GP Saturday

- The joy of Sebastian Vettel’s race engineer Riccardo Adami when he told the German he was on pole for the Canadian GP showed it all: Ferrari desperately needed to get it right and take the chance that Circuit Gilles Villeneuve gave them to be ahead of Mercedes. There was a sense of relief and a lot of confidence in Vettel’s interviews after qualy, knowing that Ferrari’s starts have been good, and their straight-line speed might protect him also during the race.

- The result marked Sebastian Vettel's first pole position since last year's German Grand Prix, a drought of 17 races. It was his longest spell between poles since Singapore 2015 to Russia 2017, a period of 31 races.

- Lewis Hamilton, on the other hand, said he would attack at the start. “All guns blazing!” he said, knowing that a Canadian GP that could have become difficult for him after the crash yesterday is now a very good opportunity to gain many points on teammate Valtteri Bottas, who struggled to sixth.

- With an even lower tone of voice than normal after a “small mistake” on his first Q3 run and “a messy” second lap, Bottas looked like he felt the hit. The Finn had everything on his side at the start of the Saturday, but ended up complicating things.

- One of the drivers that could trap Bottas in the race is Daniel Ricciardo, by far the happiest man in the paddock. He even said he is considering tattooing the June 8 date, as it was the same as his first win!

- Ricciardo's fourth-place finish for Renault marked the team's best qualifying result since the 2010 Japanese Grand Prix, when Robert Kubica qualified third at Suzuka.

- There was joy for some, but problems for other, as Kevin Magnussen smashed the Haas right in front of teammate Romain Grosjean in the last corner of their last attempt to go through to Q3. The Dane ended up in the top 10 but will start from the pitlane due to a chassis change. “I don’t think we are completely stupid but, if there is something strange going on, then we are in the middle of it!” said Guenther Steiner, joking he is even starting to believe there is some kind of voodoo with the team.

- Steiner even fears Netflix will kick Haas out because of the amount of drama they generate but, when he has told that Toto Wolff decided that Mercedes was joining the show only to swear as much as him, he sent a message to the Austrian: “He needs to try hard. He is not as good as me. Tell him that!”

- On a more serious note, Red Bull and Ferrari have been asking Pirelli to revert to the 2018 tyres, but they would need at least five more teams to support them, as this kind of changes need at least 70 percent support to happen. Last year’s tyres were criticized for generating overheating, while this year’s tyres have a smaller operating window. Red Bull and Ferrari believe that tyres are key to understand why Mercedes has been so dominant in 2019.

- But that is not the only fight happening behind the scenes. After a long meeting where teams demanded less standardised parts in the 2021 rules, it looks like the FIA has agreed to push the final decision to October and listen to the team’s demands. No wonder why many in the paddock start to believe that the ‘revolution’ foreseen initially won’t happen.

- Pierre Gasly's defeat of Max Verstappen in qualifying means that only Sergio Perez (v Lance Stroll at Racing Point) and George Russell (v Robert Kubica at Williams) have perfect 7-0 records over their teammates on Saturdays this year.

- Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc and Valtteri Bottas will all start on Medium tyres tomorrow in Canada. The rest of the Q3 runners will all start the race on Softs.

- Lando Norris avoided a sanction for failing to stick to the race director's instruction and stay to the left of the bollard after missing the final chicane during FP3. This followed the same let-off for Kevin Magnussen on Friday in Montreal.

- Charles Leclerc was formally given a sanction of having his lap time deleted for falling foul of the same infringement at the Turn 8/9 chicane, but as it was an aborted lap, it had no bearing on the final qualifying result. Leclerc was also told that if he did the same in the race on Sunday, he would receive a time penalty.

- The Canadian Grand Prix begins at 1410 ET on Sunday in Montreal (1910 BST).

Luke Smith contributed to this report.