Hamilton takes pole at Canadian GP

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MONTREAL, Canada -- Britain's Lewis Hamilton continued his remarkable rookie season in Formula One by claiming his first pole position with a brilliant performance in qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix on Saturday.

Hamilton bettered his McLaren teammate and world champion Fernando Alonso at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal with a time of one minute 15.707 seconds.

Germany's Nick Heidfeld will start third on the grid for BMW Sauber followed by the Ferrari pair of Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa.

Hamilton, 22, has finished on the podium in each of the first five races of the season and is tied on points with championship leader Alonso.

He had shown his pace by topping the charts in the opening practice session on Saturday and carried that form into the hour-long qualifying, having over four tenths of a second to spare over Alonso, who had pipped him for pole in the previous round in Monaco.

"It has been a fantastic day, it is already a fantastic weekend," said Hamilton.

"It is not easy when you have a two-time world champion hunting you down.

"I had an opportunity to go out and take pole and this time I took it," he added

"It took a while to learn, it is a very demanding course, physically, mentally and also technically."

Another chance

"The front row will be enough for today and there will be another chance in the race on Sunday," said Alonso, who said he had lost a little grip before going into the final chicane.

Australian Mark Webber in a Red Bull qualified sixth fastest with the Williams of German Nico Rosberg in seventh ahead of Pole Robert Kubica in a Saube.

Italy's Giancarlo Fisichella was ninth for Renault and his countryman Jarno Trulli of Toyota tenth.

Renault rookie Heikki Kovalainen, who stepped into Alonso's shoes at the French team at the end of last season, qualified 22nd and last.

The Finn already had a 10 place penalty as a result of an unscheduled engine change after a failure in final practice and his nightmare continued in qualifying when he hit the wall, forcing the first session to be halted.

"There is no point pretending it won't be a tough afternoon tomorrow," he said.

Germany's Ralf Schumacher, twice on pole in Canada for Williams in the past, also had a miserable afternoon for Toyota and qualified 18th while Italian team mate Jarno Trulli will start 10th.

Schumacher, whose future in Formula One is looking increasingly uncertain after a string of poor results, blamed traffic for his predicament.

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