Montreal, Jun 19 (IANS): After securing a P4 in the Canadian Grand Prix qualifying race on Saturday, the seven-time Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton was beaming with joy, admitting that he has never felt so good with this kind of results.

2022 has been a rough season so far for the Mercedes' driver, but at a Montreal track where he has won seven times before, Hamilton grabbed P4 in a tough condition.

"Honestly, I feel amazing, I'm so happy. P4 has never felt so good, to be honest. Maybe when I was in my first year of racing, the first year here in 2007, when I got my first P4 in qualifying. It felt great then, and I think this kind of feels like that, but particularly because it's been a really, really difficult year, so to go through what we're faced with today... it's difficult for everyone out there," said an elated Hamilton.

Red Bull's Max Verstappen took pole position in a wet qualifying at the Canadian Grand Prix with Alpine's Fernando Alonso a surprise second on Saturday. Alonso took his first front-row grid slot since he was on pole for the 2012 German Grand Prix in a Ferrari. Ferrari's Carlos Sainz was third, ahead of Hamilton.

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff revealed that Hamilton might have secured P2 in qualifying in Montreal, had it not been for a strategy error from the team that sent him out earlier to set his time.

"We were pretty competitive in the wet conditions today and finishing P4 and P8 is below what we could have achieved," Wolff said.

"Lewis did a great job to take P4 but unfortunately he was out of phase with the other cars and set his time one lap earlier, so he didn't get the track in its best condition. So potentially it could have been P2 when we look at the relative performance across the field."