Montreal, QC – It was a bright sunny qualifying Saturday at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal. The place was abuzz with the earlier announcement of an agreement in principle that the Canadian Grand Prix would be staying in Montreal for the next 10 years into 2024. It was great news for the city and Formula One fans considering the doubt that loomed ahead of next year’s event. 

Politics aside, it was now time for qualifying. Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg was the first to crack the 1:15 mark and ended with the best time of 1:14.874 that stood up over his-teammate Lewis Hamilton, who took second. This is Rosberg’s third pole position of the season, with the other four going to Hamilton. 

Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel, the defending driver’s champion and Canadian Grand Prix winner will start from the second row in third place. 

The Williams-duo of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa continued their impressive Saturday drives by placing fourth and fifth respectively. 

Rounding out the top-ten were: Vettel’s teammate Daniel Ricciardo, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne, McLaren’s Jenson Button and the second Ferrari car of Kimi Raikkonen.

When both Mercedes drivers were asked whether any other competitor could race with them on Sunday, Rosberg and Hamilton differed in their answers. 

“I expect that's it going to be between the two of us for now...but I think we have enough of a gap at the moment on race pace,” Rosberg honestly replied.

Hamilton took a different approach stating: “I don't think it's just between the two of us...so we definitely cannot disregard Sebastian [Vettel] or Red Bull. I think we need to be very cautious, still, and make sure that we keep pushing.”  

Earlier rounds

Q1 would not see much surprise, but the session would be stopped with less than a minute to go after a spin and stop by Caterham rookie Marcus Ericsson. Outside of the usual bottom dwellers, Lotus’ Pastor Maldonaldo and Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez (crashed in final practice and went for a chassis change over competing in qualifying) didn’t make it to Q2. 

The second round of qualifying saw the usual Mercedes suspects of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg top the charts with times close to 1:15. Surprisingly McLaren rookie Kevin Magnussen failed to qualify and will start P12 after registering the second quickest lap in P1 behind Hamilton.

In the end, we will once again see a Mercedes on pole for every race this calendar year, making it seven-in-a-row. Let’s see if any tension still exists when Rosberg and Hamilton battle it out tomorrow. The Canadian Grand Prix begins at 2:00pm ET.