Drivers' statements after qualifying for the F1 2022 Canadian Grand Prix

The Canadian GP held its first Formula 1 qualifying session since the 2019 season, and Max Verstappen got the better of it by taking pole-position on Saturday (18). The driver flew in a session marked by wet asphalt and gave no chances to the competition. Fernando Alonso was the closest challenger and secured second place, with fellow Spaniard Carlos Sainz completing the top-3.

Lewis Hamilton managed to take Mercedes to fourth place, just ahead of the two Haas cars - with Kevin Magnussen in fifth and Mick Schumacher in sixth. Well below his Alpine teammate, Esteban Ocon still managed a good result with seventh place, ahead of George Russell - who tried a different move with soft tires at the end of the session, but saw the experiment fail.

Finally, Daniel Ricciardo took McLaren to the top-10 with his ninth place - his teammate Lando Norris suffered from an engine problem and had to retire in Q2 - while Guanyu Zhou made history as the first Chinese driver to participate in Q3 in F1 history and finished in tenth place.

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Check out everything the drivers had to say after qualifying in Canada:

Max Verstappen, first: Verstappen celebrates pole in "difficult situation" in Canada: "We kept calm"

Fernando Alonso, second: Alonso praises Alpine in Canada and promises to attack Verstappen "in the first corner"

Carlos Sainz, third: Sainz regrets mistake "in the last corner" that cost second place in Canada

Lewis Hamilton, fourth: Hamilton celebrates 4th in qualifying, but warns: "Rain made everything different

Kevin Magnussen, fifth: Schumacher celebrates best starting position, but complains about Sainz in Q3

Mick Schumacher, sixth: Schumacher celebrates better starting position, but complains about Sainz in Q3

Esteban Ocon, seventh: "First of all, I'm happy for the team and for Fernando [Alonso] today. He deserves to start on the front row after having a great weekend so far. From my side, I feel a little disappointed, as there was probably something more to look for in these conditions. We weren't able to extract the performance that we know is there, and I felt a little off the pace all weekend. As always, we will continue to work hard with the engineers to find small gains. Still, we have both cars in good grid positions for tomorrow and are in contention to score good points for the team, which is the most important thing."

George Russell, eighth: Russell takes on choice for soft tires in Q3 in Montreal: "It was my decision"

Daniel Ricciardo, ninth: "I think the weekend has been good. In both conditions, of course, but I think in the rain we've been more competitive. As the track started to dry out, I felt we started to lose performance and I couldn't compete with the faster times ahead. A few tenths more would probably help me move up a few positions, you can always see that in these mixed conditions, but overall so far so good. Some cars are out of place tomorrow, and that will make things interesting. Obviously, there are also some faster cars behind, but that's not my problem. I'll try to look ahead and get some more points."

Guanyu Zhou, tenth: "I'm extremely happy to have qualified to Q3, especially as it was the first time I had a qualifying session entirely in the wet - in only my third rainy session overall, after Imole and today's TL3. From the moment I woke up this morning and saw the conditions, I knew anything could happen. We have been close to Q3 in the past, but I didn't expect to reach it here in Montreal, which is a completely new track for me. However, we have shown good pace and good progress during the season so far and this is the result. I enjoyed driving in these conditions and with the added pressure for us drivers, because every little mistake can affect your performance. It was very difficult out there today, the track was slippery and it was almost impossible to see the other drivers in front. I'm happy that I gave it everything I have, my laps in Q3 were a bit messy, but I'm happy that I extracted the full potential of the car. In terms of race pace, we have always been very strong in the past in dry conditions, so we will try to do our best tomorrow and fight for a place in the top ten."

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Valtteri Bottas, 11th: "I felt we could have been even better than P11, but I was unlucky with the weather: I was one of the first to cross the finish line at a time when the track was improving by almost a second per lap. Everyone behind me had a big lead, so I was unlucky with that, and I had a small crash in turn 1 - which cost me a bit of time. It's a shame, because the car did well in mixed conditions. The track was quite tricky, especially in Q1 when visibility was close to zero; in Q2, the asphalt improved quickly and it looked like a big improvement. The conditions tomorrow will be completely different, it's something we had in mind with our setup and I hope we will be competitive: we can fight with both cars for some good points. It's good to have Zhou and I up there, he did a good job today getting into Q3 for the first time."

Alexander Albon, 12th: "We had good pace with the car today, with our best qualifying of the year. We made some changes to how we approached qualifying and it paid off for us, so I'm happy with today and I think we did a good job. As much as I went into the wall in turn 6, I only damaged my front wing. Usually our race pace is better than qualifying, so I think we are in a better position to do a good job tomorrow. The points are obviously my goal, and it's satisfying that we're close to tenth place. So that's my focus."

Sergio Pérez, 13th: Pérez admits mistake that culminated in retirement in Q2 in Canada: "I let my team down."

Lando Norris, 14th: "A lot of problems. These are the conditions I love, but there was nothing I could do. We made an attempt, but it wasn't good enough to compete at the end. [Problem] happened at the end of Q1 and possibly throughout Q2. I'm not sure what happened, and I'm not sure if the team knows too - we tried to fix the problem, but we couldn't find it. I have to be optimistic starting from 14th position. Let's aim for the points - we will be more competitive in the dry than we were today."

Pierre Gasly, 15th: "I'm very disappointed with qualifying, it's extremely frustrating. TL3 was great for us, so we knew we had the potential to do well that afternoon, but we just missed the point in qualifying. The start of Q1 was good and I was happy with our performance, but we went back to the pits and after that I had a problem with the brakes, which made it very difficult and I couldn't get through to Q2. It's obviously complicated now, but we'll look at everything throughout the night and see how we can get ahead tomorrow."

Sebastian Vettel, 16th: Vettel laments drop in qualifying performance: "I don't know where it went"

Lance Stroll, 17th: "I don't know where our pace went. We didn't change much between TL3 and qualifying - but we were very slow, and we didn't understand that. It's a shame, because we could have done very well in those conditions. Given the way the car felt, the lap times were not a surprise. The car was very difficult to drive - it was slipping and had a very bad rear end exit. We need to look at the data because something clearly didn't work. Still, I'm optimistic for tomorrow's race. Today's results put us at the bottom of the grid, but we showed good pace in Friday practice and we can come back after that."

Nicholas Latifi, 18th: "A very complicated qualifying with the extremely bad conditions. Having to use the extreme rain tires is a bit of a challenge for everyone, as they offer little to no grip. Whenever you can, you prefer to stay with the intermediates, but there was a lot of standing water. I was having a lot of problems with braking that we need to try to understand. When you don't have enough grip in the corners and you don't have confidence that the car will stop, it makes the session very complicated. It was better this morning in TL3, but we had limited track time after hitting a groundhog, which meant we needed to make repairs. It will be challenging tomorrow, but we will try to go further and maximize any opportunity."

Charles Leclerc, 19th: Leclerc relies on Ferrari pace to "climb the peloton as fast as possible" in Canada

Yuki Tsunoda, 20th: "It was always the plan today to go out for just two laps, due to the engine punishment I'm suffering this weekend. The qualifying conditions were extremely bad, even compared to TL3, and there was a lot more standing water - so we didn't want to take any risks. Our plan has always been to focus on tomorrow throughout the free practice sessions, so hopefully we have set the car up in a strong way to help us overtake as much as possible in the race."