Pirelli, Paul Hembery: “Tomorrow we will see a very exciting and unpredictable race”

World Championship leader Sebastian Vettel narrowly beat last year's pole at the Montreal circuit in Canada with a time of 1m13.014s recorded in Q3 on the PZero Red supersoft tyres. The Red Bull Racing driver thus won his sixth pole position of the year.

Vettel reserved all his strength for the final session, eclipsing last year's pole position time of 1m15.105s by more than two seconds. Vettel's time was just eight tenths of a second better than the circuit's all-time record, which has stood since 2004 (Ralf Schumacher, 1m12.275s).

Today's qualifying sessions were also very successful for Ferrari, with Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa starting from second and third position respectively, very close to Vettel. Alonso will start on the front row for the first time in 2011.

Qualifying in Canada was dominated by the weather, with dropping temperatures and overcast skies that left us fearing rain could arrive at any moment. To counter this risk, the teams focused on setting the best times as soon as possible.

This brought the supersoft PZero Reds to center stage which, as expected, proved to be around a second per lap faster than the soft PZero Yellows. Ultimately the session remained dry, although ambient temperatures dropped to 21 degrees centigrade, making it difficult for the drivers to bring the tires up to temperature.

A successful qualifying session also for the ex-Pirelli test driver, Pedro de la Rosa, who yesterday, with just 10 minutes' notice, was called upon to replace Sauber driver Sergio Perez, who had not felt well. The Spaniard will start from 17th position on tomorrow's grid: his first race since the 2010 Italian GP.

In the morning, the final free practice had initially been dominated by Mercedes and Ferrari, before Vettel set a time of 1m13.381s at the end of the session, in hot conditions.

Tomorrow's race, which will take place over 70 laps, has a 60% chance of rain: a high percentage, which today influenced the set-ups of several single-seaters.

The comment of Pirelli Motorsport Director, Paul Hembery: “Today the teams had to make numerous strategic choices and the weather certainly created doubts for everyone. This forced the teams to fit the supersofts earlier than they would normally have done, which will undoubtedly also influence tomorrow's race strategy. Ferrari has shown itself to be very competitive throughout the weekend so far, and we have seen in the past how fast its race pace is. If we add to this the high risk of rain, all the elements suggest that tomorrow we will see a very exciting and unpredictable race.”