Lewis Hamilton on his first pole for McLaren

June 9, 2007 McLaren Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton won his first pole position and together with his teammate Fernando Alonso will start from the front row of tomorrow FIA Formula-1 2007 Canadian Grand Prix at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montréal, Canada. During the first and second qualifying session Alonso stayed in the lead of his young companion, but on the dying lap of the third he lost the pole to Lewis by nearly half of a second.

The qualifying sessions on this track showed a number of driver errors, most notable of them was a collision of Heikki Kovallainen, Renault, when the Finn attacked the concrete wall too aggressively, causing severe damage to the back of his car.

Race stewards voided the penultimate lap done by Nick Heidfeld, when he mistakenly cut one of the track turns. However, in the last of his hotlaps, he had an error-free lap that counted and nabbed the third starting spot, overtaking both Ferrari cars of Massa and Raikkonen.

This pole became the major step to the first Formula One victory for Lewis, after he won four consecutive second places in the previous races.