A wet race meet had been on and off since the teams touched down in Montreal and Qualifying Day saw just the right amount of rain fall; not so much the session was Red Flagged and sufficient to make it interesting. The Goldilocks amount of rain.
Rain promises a shake-up in the order of results. Gasly got himself in trouble with the stewards by driving the wrong side of a bollard. Canadian Latifi was unable to get through to the second qualifying session, with his team mate managing to do so. The other Canadian, Stroll, was also out along with team mate Vettel. LeClerc, Albon and Stroll were investigated for going too slow. All these investigations came to nothing...
In to session 2 and Albon went off the track, appearing to crash into the wall but no, he kept it going and rejoined. He is just what Williams need. Perez then showed Albon how it's done with a full frontal into the tech-pro with a thud and brought out the Red Flag as he couldn't find reverse. With 8 minutes left of the session, torrential rain would have been very good fun, as Alonso would have been on pole position.
LeClerc, already awarded a grid penalty for taking a fourth engine of the season, didn't go out to put in a lap. Alonso held onto that first place for a while before Verstappen swooped in to claim it. Along with Perez and LeClerc, out went Albon (starting 12th, well done), Bottas and Norris, who had a problem with his car.
In the final session, it all came to down to the very last laps the drivers put in. Verstappen had quite a secure hold on pole position. Sainz came close to challenging for it and took second from Hamilton before a storming Alonso, took that away from him. Russell gambled on slick tires and could only manage 8th. One wonders if Toto made that call just to stop Hamilton whinging for a bit as he out-qualifies his team mate for once. Alonso is definitely the fan's favourite and he says he's going for it on race day.
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