Rosberg beats Hamilton to bag Canadian GP pole

Montreal, June 8 (IANS/CMC) Lewis Hamilton is set to resume his enthralling Formula 1 duel with Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg in Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix after finishing second to the German in qualifying at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve here Saturday.

The 29-year-old Briton will start second after clocking a fastest lap of one minute, 14.953 seconds while Rosberg took pole with 1:14.874. Both drivers have accounted for all the victories this season so far and the trend seems set to continue with two Silver Arrows locking out the front row.

"Nico did a fantastic job so congratulations to him. Just wasn't the greatest qualifying session this. Sometimes you have good ones, sometimes you have bad ones. But it's great for the team that we have got the 1-2 in qualifying. A really fantastic performance," Hamilton said.

The pair are coming off from the controversial Monaco Grand Prix where they had a major bust-up over Rosberg's incident in qualifying, which ruined Hamilton's chances of bagging pole position. Rosberg went on to win the event and knock Hamilton off the top of the drivers' standings.

Hamilton said a win would now be difficult with the two Mercedes cars being similar in speed.

"It's not that easy, especially with Nico being so fast. It is going to be very difficult to overtake the same car as mine, especially when we're so close in pace. I'll do what I can but the thing is to try to make sure we get as many points as we can."

Hamilton lies second in the standings on 118 points, just four adrift of Rosberg.

Defending champion Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull will start from the second row alongside Williams' Valtteri Bottas.

--IANS/CMC

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