On the weekend Red Bull can claim their 100th F1 win and Verstappen can match Ayrton Senna's victory tally of 41, the world championship leader will start from pole position after making the most of being first out on track in Q3 as the rain intensified, setting a best time of 1:25.858.

Verstappen will be joined on the front row by Fernando Alonso after Hulkenberg was handed a three-place grid penalty for a red flag infringement.

The Haas driver had managed to complete a lap and better Alonso's first Q3 effort just before the red flag was thrown out after Oscar Piastri crashed into the barriers. However, Hulkenberg was found to have not slowed down sufficiently when the red flag came out and he was demoted three places to fifth three-and-a-half hours after the session ended.

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As rain continued to fall during the seven-minute red flag delay, no driver was able to improve his time in the final minutes of Q3.

"In the wet you just have to stay on top of the conditions," Verstappen said. "It was super slippery out there in some places, but we just made all the right calls, the right time on the track to do the lap times, and I'm very happy to be on pole here.

"I like driving in the wet. I come from Holland, so we are used to driving in the wet.

"Let's see, maybe it's dry tomorrow and then it can be a bit different, but normally we have a good race car."

Mercedes duo Lewis Hamilton and George Russell will now start third and fourth after Hulkenberg's penalty is applied, with Alpine's Esteban Ocon and McLaren's Lando Norris now lining up behind the Haas.

Carlos Sainz set the eighth fastest time, but the Ferrari driver was later handed a three-place grid penalty for impeding Pierre Gasly in Q1.

The Alpine driver had to take to the run-off area at the final chicane after narrowly avoiding a high-speed crash as cars backed up at the end of the session.

"Carlos did the worst job possible to stay completely on the racing line," Gasly told Sky Sports F1.

"For me that's completely unacceptable and unfair. I have no words to explain what happened."

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and Red Bull's Sergio Perez were absent from the top-10 shootout for the second race in a row after they were unable to make the most of a drying track during Q2. Leclerc will line up 10th, promoted one position by Sainz's penalty, while Perez will start 12th.

Alex Albon had topped Q2 after being the first driver to move onto the soft tyres, but he was unable to set a lap time in the final segment and will line up ninth behind Piastri.

A busy evening for the stewards also saw penalties further down the grid, with Lance Stroll dropping from 13th to 16th after impeding Esteban Ocon while Yuki Tsunoda dropped from 16th to 19th for impeding Hulkenberg in the first part of qualifying.

Canadian GP Qualifying result

1) Max Verstappen, Red Bull
2) Nico Hulkenberg, Haas*
3) Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin
4) Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes
5) George Russell, Mercedes
6) Esteban Ocon, Alpine
7) Lando Norris, McLaren
8) Carlos Sainz, Ferrari*
9) Oscar Piastri, McLaren
10) Alex Albon, Williams

*Hulkenberg and Sainz given three-place grid penalties

How Verstappen claimed a 25th pole position and Hulkenberg lost second place

After the track had dried out enough for slick tyres in Q2, the rain at the end of that segment had intensified by the time Q3 began.

Verstappen was the first to take to the track in the top-10 shootout and posted a time of 1:27.059, with Alonso getting within a quarter of a second with his opening effort.

Verstappen was still able to find improvement on his next effort to set his pole time, and Alonso was also improving through the first two sectors when the red flag was deployed as Piastri span at Turn Seven, damaging the rear of his McLaren.

Hulkenberg had looked set to give Haas their first ever front-row start for a Grand Prix with a fine lap in the wet, but the German will now have to settle for fifth on the grid.

Explaining the penalty, the stewards said: "The driver had just finished his fastest lap and had started another push lap. He was at T1 when the red flag was displayed, however at that point he was already 1.5 seconds over his delta time. He claimed this made it extremely difficult for him to come below the delta in the next sector. He also admitted to confusion about the beep signal in his headset, and therefore at one stage thought he was going too slow.

"Comparison of telemetry with that of Car 31 (Ocon) showed that in general for the rest of the lap he was approximately the same speed as Car 31 which complied with the delta times in each mini-sector. We regard this as a mitigating circumstance.

"However, the regulation is very clear and whilst there is no question of the driver acting dangerously or driving unsafely, there was a breach and thus a penalty has to be imposed. The normal penalty for failure to slow under red flags is 10 grid positions however in view of the mitigating circumstance, a lower penalty is appropriate."

Perez, Leclerc makes early qualifying exits again

On Thursday, Perez had said he could not afford any more "bad weekends" after seeing his title challenge fall away with poor displays in Monaco and Barcelona.

Perez had crashed out of Q1 in Monaco and exited in Q2 in Spain, but would make another early exit here in Canada after struggling in the improving track conditions.

The Mexican was among the last drivers to switch to slick tyres as a dry line formed, and as he did so the rain returned. Perez made a switch back to intermediate tyres but then locked up at the final chicane to be unable to finish an improved lap, and by the time he could go around again, the track was too wet to improve.

"Once we went on the slick tyre track position wasn't great. We were half a lap late," Perez said.

"We definitely could have been a lot higher, in the top three."

Leclerc also fell early and vented his fury at his Ferrari team over the radio, claiming they had not got the tyres ready when they were needed.

The weekend had been looking more promising for the Italian team after a strong Friday and Leclerc had been second fastest in Saturday's wet Practice Three.

But that promise unravelled on Saturday afternoon with Leclerc left fuming at strategy decisions.

"When the track is so dry and we are staying on intermediates, we are not making our life any easier," he told Sky Sports F1.

"We will discuss with the team but it's not the first time it's happened. We are quite often on the wrong side of making those decisions in those tricky situations.

"I had a clear opinion and we went for something opposite."

Home favourite Stroll was another driver to make an early exit, the Canadian spinning his Aston Martin and damaging his front wing with the resulting pit stop costing essential time as the rain returned with his grid penalty then adding further pain.

But Albon was the star of the second period having immediately gone onto the soft tyres to set the fastest time in the session.

Gasly falls in Q1 in frantic finish

In the opening segment, Gasly was the big name to fall when he was a victim of cars backing up through the final chicane.

The Frenchman, who received two three-place grid penalties last time out in Spain for impeding in qualifying, had to take evasive action to avoid piling into the back of Sainz's Ferrari.

"Pierre would've been P6 and instead was out in Q1," Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnaur told Sky Sports F1.

Hamilton and Stroll also had a close coming together at the hairpin, with the Mercedes driver almost turning in on the Aston Martin.