Hamilton leads the way

Lewis Hamilton blew away McLaren's overnight fears to offer genuine hope of ending Red Bull Racing's domination of qualifying.

The majority of the drivers slated the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in the wake of Friday's two 90-minute practice sessions, especially as it was destroying the softer-compound tyres. Jenson Button described it as "scary", Hamilton said it was "like an ice rink", whilst Robert Kubica claimed it to be the worst he had driven in Formula One.

However, 2008 world champion Hamilton was comfortably quickest in the final hour-long practice session ahead of qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix, although he brushed a wall late on without penalty given his speed.

Hamilton clocked a time of one minute 16.058 seconds, finishing over a quarter of a second quicker than Red Bull's Mark Webber, and eight tenths of a second up on Sebastian Vettel's best time on Friday.

Unusually for F1 this season, four different teams occupied the top four places, with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso third and the Mercedes of Michael Schumacher fourth, both just under half a second down.

Vettel was fifth, followed by Renault's Robert Kubica, who was again bitterly complaining about failing to get his tyres to work, with Force India's Adrian Sutil seventh.

Although reigning champion Button was much quicker than Friday, he could only manage eighth, 0.641secs adrift of Hamilton.

Force India's Vitantonio Liuzzi and the second Renault of Vitaly Petrov completed the top 10, followed by Williams' Nico Hulkenberg and Felipe Massa in his Ferrari.