Lewis Hamilton hails 'amazing' pole position for the Canadian GP

A jubilant Lewis Hamilton said he "felt amazing" after being forced to dig deep to claim pole position for the Canadian GP ahead of Nico Rosberg and Kimi Raikkonen.

The world champion, already on the backfoot at the start of the weekend after his traumatic defeat in Monaco two weeks ago, had to overcome a crash in Friday practice and limited running in the Saturday morning warm-up session before beating Rosberg to pole by three tenths of a second.

Appropriately enough for the driver of car 44, the latest landmark was Hamilton's 44th career pole in F1.

"I feel amazing today," the Mercedes driver said. "It wasn't actually the easiest of days - P3 was quite tough and I didn't really complete any laps. Mostly my fault, so I was going into qualifying a little bit blind really where the set-up would be.

"I'm very, very happy with pole. It was hard out there with these tyres which are pretty hard to switch on, but I enjoyed it."

Although neither Mercedes driver was able to improve their lap times on the final runs, Hamilton's first flying lap in Q3 was still almost a second faster than the best of the third-placed Raikkonen. Next week's Austrian GP will mark a full calendar year since Mercedes were last beaten in qualifying - although Hamilton’s latest passage to pole was anything but clear-cut.

"It was an interesting day because it started out not very good," he told Sky Sports F1. "I got nine laps in P3 and P3 is really important getting ready for qualifying, getting your balance spot on and getting the confidence - particularly here at a braking circuit. And I lost it all, two big lock-ups which destroyed the tyres, so I had to come in. I know Nico was quick and comfortable, he knew where his car was and made some changes.

"So I came in and sat next to my engineers and said 'Sorry guys, I don’t have any information for you'. So we didn't make any changes, so going into qualifying was about trying to get back to that confidence on the brakes and make sure I was back on it."

Raikkonen is likely to pose a genuine threat to Mercedes on race day, however, with the two Ferraris impressing on their long runs during practice. Nor, as Lewis himself acknowledged, perhaps with the recent history of Monaco in mind as much as Montreal's, does the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve tend to serve up straightforward narratives on race day.

"If you look at the races I've had in the past, it's never been clear-cut, even when I've been in the lead. There are so many things that can go on. Last year was a difficult race but this [pole] is the first step of with all the stuff that's been going on this weekend - crash, spins, whatever it may be - to get on pole and now try to see if we can make it smooth tomorrow."

The Canadian GP starts at 7pm UK time on Sunday night with coverage available on both Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports F1 from 6pm.