Lewis Hamilton back in business with Canadian pole

Montreal: Defending champion and current series leader Lewis Hamilton bounced back to his best Saturday to claim pole position ahead of his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg for Sunday`s Canadian Grand Prix.

Two weeks after his and Mercedes` Monaco pit-stop fiasco, the two-time champion recovered from two days of erratic form in practice to produce a smooth and fast demonstration of single lap speed and a best lap in one minute and 14.393 seconds.

This lifted him 0.309 seconds clear of 29-year-old German Rosberg who was a disappointed second fastest ahead of Finns Kimi Raikkonen in a Ferrari and Valtteri Bottas of Williams.

"It felt amazing. It wasn`t the easiest of days for me," said Hamilton.

"FP3 was quite tough this morning. I didn`t get any laps, mostly through my own fault, but I got the set-up where I wanted it to be in the end."

Rosberg meanwhile reflected: "That was a rubbish qualifying.

"I was on a roll, feeling good and in the end it didn`t come together at all.

"We need to analyse what it was, but anyway, fair play to Lewis. The race is tomorrow and there`s good chances to overtake. It`s not over yet."

After two successive wins, including his gifted triumph in Monte Carlo, Rosberg has moved within 10 points of Hamilton in the championship ahead of Sunday`s race. He has 116 and Hamilton, who crashed in Friday`s rain-hit second practice, 126.

Hamilton`s lap was nearly half a second faster than last year`s pole lap by Rosberg at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, one of the 30-year-old Briton`s favourite tracks where he is seeking a fourth win in Sunday`s race."It was very close until the last two runs," said Mercedes team chief Toto Wolff.

" think we got it slightly wrong with the tyres. We need to find out why, but it`s still too early to say. Lewis struggled a bit this morning and it wasn`t perfect yesterday.

"This pole is important for him, good for morale and good for the team. Ferrari has been looking very strong. So for us it is good that there is just one red car near the front."

That red car belonged to Raikkonen who said: "Overall, I think the weekend has been pretty good. Things have been as smooth as they can be.

"I am a bit disappointed for the team, but we have to make a good start and go from there and see what comes out."

Hamilton`s pole success was his sixth in seven races this year, the 44th of his career and his fourth in Canada where he won his maiden Formula One race in 2007.

He needs only one more pole to level with four-time champion German Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari in the record books. Vettel unexpectedly flopped on Saturday and failed to progress from Q1.

Frenchman Romain Grosjean was fifth fastest for Lotus ahead of his team-mate Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado, German Nico Hulkenberg of Force India and the two Red Bulls of Russian Daniil Kvyat and Australian Daniel Ricciardo.

Mexican Sergio Perez was 10th quickest for Force India.

On a day of surprises, two world champions failed to progress from Q1 - Briton Jenson Button of McLaren, who suffered an engine failure in the morning, and Vettel, who wound up in 16th place.

Vettel`s flop was explained as due to a failure of the Ferrari energy recovery system. His reaction was pithy and profane, resulting in two sentences of bleeps on the BBC`s television feed.

Later, he explained: "As soon as we went out for the first run, we didn`t have the power. We tried everything to get it back, but we couldn`t.

"I don`t think it has anything to do with the engine, it is more on the electronic side."