Hamilton admits pole lap "wasn't great"

The Briton beat teammate Nico Rosberg by just 0.062s to grab his second consecutive pole in Canada and the fifth at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit.

It was also Hamilton's fourth pole of 2016.

The Mercedes driver said he did not feel as quick as during yesterday's practice, and claimed there was more time to extract from his car.

"Honestly, it actually wasn't a great lap," he said. "I don't know whether I should admit that, maybe I should say it was perfect.

"Yesterday was a great day for me in terms of pace, and I didn't have that today – I don't know if it was a set-up change or what.

"It was enough, but not as much as I'd like. I had like a half a second buffer to Nico, and he gained some and I lost some. It diminished a lot."

Although Mercedes looked in a league apart for most of the session, Sebastian Vettel finished just 0.178s behind Hamilton in the end.

The Briton reckons Ferrari will be a threat for the race.

"Ferrari have picked up the pace with the upgrades they have on their car," he added.

"We have a race with them. Their long runs look strong, not stronger than ours, but we will see tomorrow."

Teammate Rosberg also made a mistake on his final flying lap and had to settle for second.

"I was hoping you hadn't seen that – but it did come out on TV," he said of his mistake. "The first lap in Q3 was good, not quite enough to beat Lewis, then the next one I tried to pull out of bag but didn't work out.

"A great team result. It showed we are the fastest car our there even on this unique track and tomorrow everything is still possible. The weather forecast is all over the place."