2008 F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton put a stop to Red Bull Racing’s run of successive poles today in Canada, when he put his McLaren in P1 for Sunday’s race at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

Hamilton, who had been fastest in practice this morning and in Q1 and Q2, set his best lap, a 1 minute 15.105 seconds, right at the end of Q3 to pip Mark Webber’s Renault-powered Red Bull RB6.

Bizarrely though, Hamilton was instructed to stop on his in-lap due to concerns over the amount of his fuel in his car. Indeed after his engineer congratulated him on a great lap, he was told to stop as if he didn’t there might not be enough fuel for the FIA to do their standard post-Q checks.

After stopping on track, Hamilton briefly pushed his car, before the marshals arrived and a safety car picked up the Englishman and whisked him back in time for the post-qualifying FIA press conference. It remains to be seen if the stewards will punish McLaren for not putting enough fuel in his car.

Despite Hamilton’s success though, Red Bull opted for a different strategy in qualifying and in contrast to McLaren ran on the harder of the Bridgestone tyres and this may yet prove to be better for the race as the softer tyres grained badly on Friday in practice.

Webber finished the shoot-out 0.268 seconds off Hamilton, while team-mate Sebastian Vettel recovered from an error at the last chicane to take third in the sister car, just 0.047 seconds slower.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso meanwhile also went well and will line-up in fourth on a 1m 15.435s, ahead of reigning world champion Jenson Button and Force India’s Vitantonio Liuzzi, who definitely seems to have benefitted from reverting to the same chassis that he used in the opening four races.

Felipe Massa took P7 on the times, followed by Renault’s Robert Kubica and the other Force India of Adrian Sutil. Nico Rosberg was slowest in Q3 and will start tenth in his Mercedes on a 1m 16.071s.

At least he made it into the top-ten shoot-out however, something his team-mate, Michael Schumacher did not do. Schumacher was on the cusp for much of Q2 and in the end he just wasn’t fast enough to progress and will actually line-up behind the Williams’ of Rubens Barrichello and Nico Hulkenberg in 13th. Schumacher pushed near the end, but made an error and went straight on at the final chicane on his last lap – similar to what Vettel later did in Q3.

Lewis Hamilton produced a stunning lap in the closing seconds of qualifying to secure pole position for the inaugural Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The McLaren Mercedes man went into qualifying as one of the hot tips for pole and didn’t disappoint as he led the way through each of the three segments of the session and blitzed his way to pole by well over half a second.

Hamilton became the first man to dip below the 1min 40secs marker during the opening segment of the session and was comfortably quicker than anyone else before repeating the feat in the sector segment when the cars were running with low fuel, with Sebastian Vettel also getting into the 1min 39s.

The outgoing champion saw his first run for pole on Q3 ruined by a mistake entering the marina section of the circuit that saw him run wide, but the Briton regrouped to then put his car on provisional pole with a lap of 1min 41.773secs. As the chequered flag flew, Mark Webber went quicker for Red Bull before being demoted by team-mate Sebastian Vettel, but Hamilton had timed his lap to perfection to ensure he was the final man to set a time.

With a target of 1min 41.615secs to beat, Hamilton crossed the line to take pole by nearly seven-tenths of a second – although it remains to be seen how much fuel was onboard the respective cars when the FIA reveals the car weights later this evening.

Regardless of fuel though, it marked a stunning performance from Hamilton as he picked up his fourth pole of the season to bounce back from his poor showing in qualifying at Interlagos, while Red Bull pair Vettel and Webber were left to settle for second and third.

Rubens Barrichello, looking to steal second in the standings back from Vettel, will start directly behind his rival on the grid after posting the fourth quickest time while newly crowned champion Jenson Button – who had been expected to fight Hamilton for pole – had to settle for fifth, although he was reporting a vibration under braking at the conclusion of the session. Jarno Trulli was sixth ahead of BMW pair Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld, while Nico Rosberg and Sebastien Buemi completed the top ten.

The second segment of qualifying had seen two big names fall, as both Kimi Raikkonen and Heikki Kovalainen failed to make it into the top-ten shootout. Raikkonen narrowly missed out on making it through as he posted the eleventh quickest time, while Kovalainen suffered the disappointment of a transmission fault, which forced him to stop on track. As a result, the Finn will start down in 13th place, behind Kamui Kobayashi’s Toyota and ahead of Kazuki Nakajima and Jaime Alguersuari.

After a below par performance in Friday practice, qualifying provided further disappointment for Renault as both Fernando Alonso and Romain Grosjean fell at the first hurdle. In his final race for the team, Alonso could only manage the 16th quickest time while his rookie team-mate will start on the back row of the grid – quicker only than Giancarlo Fisichella after another tough session for the Italian.

The session also resulted in huge disappointment for Force India as Tonio Liuzzi and Adrian Sutil could only qualify down in 17th and 18th on the grid.

Lewis Hamilton led almost from lights to flag to claim his second grand prix of the season, while Jenson Button again benefited from the misfortune of others to shore up his world championship advantage on the streets of Singapore.

Having made a lightning start, Hamilton was only briefly troubled, initially as Nico Rosberg tagged along with the McLaren, and later when Sebastian Vettel refused to be shaken off after a safety car restart, but looked comfortable as he paced the field to the chequered flag under the lights of Marina Bay. The world champion only lost the lead after taking his second fuel and tyre stop, allowing 2008 race winner Fernando Alonso a handful of laps at the front, but retook the advantage when the Spaniard stopped and cruised home over seven seconds to the good.

Rosberg appeared on course for another second place in Singapore, but made an error exiting the pits on his first stop and was relegated into the midfield by the ensuing penalty for crossing the blend line – a problem compounded by the timing of the race’s only safety car, which was called for a collision between fellow Germans Adrian Sutil and Nick Heidfeld on lap 21.

Vettel took up the mantle of chief pursuer to Hamilton, but made his own mistake by exceeding the pit-lane speed limit on his second stop, although the damage was not as severe as that endured by his Williams rival. The Red Bull driver came home as the best-placed title contender, in fourth place, despite concerns over his brakes after team-mate Mark Webber crashed when his right front disc failed.

Vettel’s problem promoted yet another German, Timo Glock, into an eventual second, the Toyota team being rewarded with a solid run back to the podium as Glock equalled his best finish in F1. Alonso completed the podium for the beleaguered Renault team, which had earlier seen rookie Romain Grosjean post the race’s first retirement.

The Brawns were also in brake trouble, forcing Button to call of his late-race pursuit of Vettel and settle for fifth, enough to extend his lead over team-mate Rubens Barrichello, who chased the Briton across the line in a race that almost made it to the two-hour time limit.

Heikki Kovalainen and Robert Kubica rounded out the scorers.

Lewis Hamilton denied Force India a second consecutive Formula One pole position with a late late lap that snatched top spot i qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix from under the nose of close friend Adrian Sutil.

The world champion had been one of the earliest runners to make a mark on the ten-minute shoot-out, and held sway through to the appearance of the chequered flag. Sutil, however, was on a flying lap – having curtailed an equally good effort the lap before – and crossed the line three tenths under Hamilton’s benchmark, despite a twitch at the first Lesmo.

Hamilton, though, was also still on track and, clocking up best sector times, had enough in hand to come through a couple of tenths quicker still, giving Sutil extra reason to rue his minor error.

Behind the top two, positions also continued to change with each passing lap but, when the order finally shook out, it was Kimi Raikkonen and Heikki Kovalainen at the head of the list, forming an all-Finnish second row.

Title contenders Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button will share row three for Brawn GP, with team boss Ross Brawn revealing that both were on a one-stop strategy, while Giancarlo Fisichella’s replacement at Force India, Tonio Liuzzi, marked his return to a race seat with seventh fastest time. Fernando Alonso and Red Bull twins Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber – who all featured in the top four at times – round out the top ten.