Hamilton claims pole for Canadian Grand Prix

(CNN) -- World championship leader Lewis Hamilton dominated qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal to claim pole position for Sunday's race.

But the McLaren man had to produce a dramatic last lap to pip Robert Kubica in the BMW who had surprisingly posted the quickest time moments before in Saturday's session.

Hamilton, who had been on pole prior to Kubica's late charge, certainly reserved his best for last with a stunning one minute 17.886 seconds to be over a half a second clear of the field.

"At the end I had two laps," Hamilton told the Associated Press.

"The first one was pretty shocking. I went wide in turn one. I had to make sure on the second one.

"I had to stick it out and make sure I got a good lap. I think I found six or seven tenths (of a second) there, so I'm pretty happy with it."

Ferrari's world champion Kimi Raikkonen, three points behind Hamilton in this year's title race, took third place in the grid with one minute 18.735 seconds while Fernando Alonso of Renault will start the race alongside the Finn in fourth.

Britain's Hamilton was claiming the eighth pole position of his remarkable career and again showed his liking for the Gilles Villeneuve Circuit where he put on a peerless performance to win last year's race.

Williams' Nico Rosberg claimed fifth spot with Ferrari number two Felipe Massa sixth, the other McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen seventh and BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld eighth.

Track conditions deteriorated during the course of qualifying and the surface was breaking up at the newly resurfaced hairpin with officials forced to use brooms to clear the racing line of gritty debris.

Drivers also reported problems on other turns with Red Bull's David Coulthard describing driving conditions as "incredibly difficult...like driving on a train track".