Canadian GP: Lewis Hamilton comfortably beats Nico Rosberg to pole

Rosberg described the conclusion to his session as "rubbish", as he ended up second best to Hamilton by three tenths of a second.

The Mercedes drivers were the only ones to lap below 1m15s around Montreal's Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, and Hamilton's 1m14.393s best on their first runs in Q3 stood as pole when neither he nor Rosberg improved on their second attempts.

With Vettel relegated to 16th place thanks to a suspected MGU-H problem, Kimi Raikkonen was the sole Ferrari representative in Q3.

NEWS UPDATE: Vettel penalised for red flag pass

The 2007 world champion had a big moment exiting Turn 4 on his best lap but it was still good enough for third on the grid.

Fellow Finn Valtteri Bottas managed a big improvement on his final run to join Raikkonen on row two for Williams and edge out the impressive Lotuses of Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado.

Force India's Nico Hulkenberg produced his best qualifying effort of the season to qualify seventh, comfortably beating both Red Bulls and team-mate Sergio Perez, who rounded out the top 10.

Daniil Kvyat got the better of team-mate Daniel Ricciardo by less than a tenth to be best of the Red Bulls in eighth.

Carlos Sainz Jr was highest placed of those to miss out on the top-10 shootout by just 0.036s in a tight fight in Q2.

The Toro Rosso driver looked on to squeak into Q3 by splitting the Red Bulls until a late improvement by Kvyat.

The sister Toro Rosso of Max Verstappen was 12th fastest, but the Dutch teenager will start last on account of a 15-place grid drop for a combination of driving standards and engine penalities.

Verstappen was just 0.017s faster than Marcus Ericsson, who was 13th fastest and well clear of Sauber team-mate Felipe Nasr.

Fernando Alonso's underpowered McLaren-Honda split the Sauber-Ferraris in 14th.

The Spaniard fell just 0.016s shy of beating both in the end and was over three tenths clear of Nasr, who qualified 15th fastest after crashing heavily in final free practice. Sauber managed to repair his car for him to join in halfway through Q1.

Jenson Button's engine problem in final practice forced him to skip qualifying, which meant only four cars were eliminated in Q1.

Vettel swore over the radio when Ferrari told him his sole run in Q1 was only good enough for 16th spot, over three tenths adrift of Alonso's McLaren as he limped around significantly down on power.

Felipe Massa was the other shock loser in this segment, half a second further back.

The Brazilian complained of a lack of power from his Williams's Mercedes engine and he could do no better than 17th.

The Manor Marussias were predictably the slowest of the cars that ran in this session.

Roberto Merhi was best of the two for the first time this season with a time just 0.024s faster than team-mate Will Stevens.

NEWS UPDATE: Vettel penalised for red flag pass

PROVISIONAL STARTING GRID: