Lewis Hamilton snatched the eighth pole position of his career with a last-ditch lap in qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix.
Mercedes driver Hamilton, the current world championship leader, grabbed pole with a time of one minute 17.886 seconds to deny Robert Kubica of BMW Sauber.
The Polish driver had taken top spot in the shootout for tomorrow's starting grid positions moments before with a lap of 1:18.498.
Ferrari's world champion Kimi Raikkonen, three points behind Hamilton in this year's title race, took third place in the grid with 1:18.735 while Fernando Alonso of Renault will start the race alongside the Finn in fourth after a lap of 1:18.746.
Williams' Nico Rosberg claimed fifth spot in 1:18.844 with Ferrari's Felipe Massa sixth, the other McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen seventh and BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld eighth.
Hamilton had posted the quickest times in all three sections but his Q1 time of 1:16.909 proved to be the fastest of all as the track deteriorated over the course of the session at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Toro Rosso's Sebastian Vettel did not make it to the qualifying session, the German driver having hit the wall coming out of turn nine during the morning's final free practice session.
The damage to the right side of the car was obviously too much for Vettel to continue, which meant just four drivers faced elimination from the first section of qualifying.
Gearbox problems in the Honda of Jenson Button caused the Englishman to cut short his Q1 session and accept his place at the back of the grid alongside Vettel.
Giancarlo Fisichella, his Force India team-mate Adrian Sutil and Toro Rosso's Sebastien Bourdais were the other three eliminated after Q1.
Between Q1 and Q2, marshals were out at L'Epingle sweeping debris from a track that looked to breaking up as temperatures rose in Montreal to 43 degrees centigrade at circuit level.
The surface continued to be slippery in Q2 with Jarno Trulli spinning into trouble through turn nine but missing the wall before returning to business.
The Toyota man did not have enough to reach the final shootout round, however, as he was eliminated alongside team-mate Timo Glock, Renault's Nelson Piquet, David Coulthard of Red Bull and Kazuki Nakajima of Williams.
Hamilton was again the quickest although not as fast as Q1, with a best lap of 1:17.034, followed by the Ferraris of Raikkonen and Massa.
Mark Webber, who finished as fifth fastest in Q2 spun out as the section ended, missed the shootout when he lost the back end of his Red Bull, the spin seeing his nose cone hit the barrier.
The break-up of the track at the newly resurfaced hairpin forced the brooms back out to clear the driving line of the gritty debris ahead of the Q3 top-10 shootout.
Drivers also reported problems at a variety of turns with Coulthard describing driving conditions as 'incredibly difficult...like driving on a train track'.
The state of the track prompted Hamilton out first for Q3, setting the benchmark at 1:18.721 with his first flying lap, half a second quicker than Massa, and he went even quicker two laps later with a time of 1:18.510.
Former McLaren team-mate Alonso, who shared the front row in Montreal with Hamilton last year, made a bid to repeat the feat in his Renault, posting 1:18.971.
Then Raikkonen looked headed to take pole after going quicker than Hamilton through the first two sectors of the lap only to lose time in the final sector. It was still good enough to edge ahead of Alonso in 1:18.735.
The Finnish world champion still had time for a final flying lap but just missed out again, only for Kubica to grab pole before he was deposed as Hamilton pulled out one last flying lap out of his McLaren.
