Montreal: Kimi Räikkönen will start from ninth on the grid and Romain Grosjean a distant 29th - or thereabouts - after a hectic qualifying session for the Canadian Grand Prix. Following a shortened morning practice session, qualifying was wet throughout with a brief red flag period nearing the end of Q2.

Romain was a victim of unfortunate timing as a yellow flag affected one fast lap in Q1, and an increasingly wet track prevented another. He qualified 19th, meaning he will start from the back of the 22-car grid once his ten-place grid penalty is factored in.

Kimi Räikkönen said P9 on the grid was not what they wanted. “We didn’t have grip in these conditions so we did pretty much all we could do, but if there’s no grip you can’t go faster. In this weather it’s difficult as sometimes the rain gets harder, sometimes the track is drying so you have to try to be out there when the circuit’s at its best. P9 on the grid is not what we want so we’ll have to see what we can do in the race tomorrow.”

Meanwhile Romain Grosjean said, “Clearly not the best day, and of course with the grid penalty I now start in what should be P29 for the race, which is a long way back! After we changed to new intermediates mid-way through the session I had one lap to set a time when the track was at its driest, but there were yellow flags after someone went straight on so I had to slow down and respect the warning. Then the track was too wet to go faster. We got caught out a little bit by the weather but it’s nobody’s fault; just yet more bad luck. In these conditions it’s impossible to predict when the rain will be at its heaviest and we didn’t see anything from the radar to suggest it would get worse. It’s going to be a long race from the back, but we know the car is quick so our weekend is far from over yet.”