Lewis Hamilton finally ended Red Bull Racing's domination of qualifying this season by grabbing the 18th pole position of his Formula One career.

Hamilton finished quickest at the end of all three sessions ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, timing his final run to perfection to knock Mark Webber off top spot to end the team's run of seven successive poles this season.

The 2008 world champion clocked a time of one minute 15.105secs in his McLaren before drama unfolded after he had crossed the line as the team told him to stop on track as he was out of fuel.

It culminated in the 25-year-old initially coasting on idle before he then sat on top of his car as it freewheeled along, prior to him then getting out and pushing before help finally arrived.

It was a breathtaking performance from Hamilton in clinching his first pole since the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last year.

Hamilton had earlier set the fastest time of the three practice sessions with a 1:16.068secs but he initially blew that clean out of the water in the opening 20-minute qualifying run by becoming the first driver to dip below 76 seconds with a 1:15.889.

His main rivals in Sebastian Vettel, Robert Kubica in the Enstone-built Renault and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso all countered early in Q2 as the times tumbled, only for Hamilton to lower the benchmark again with a 1:15.528.

Then in Q3 as Hamilton, Alonso, Vettel and Webber traded top spot, Hamilton crossed the line to start his final lap with just seven seconds to spare before producing one of the runs of his life.

Behind Webber comes team-mate Vettel, with Alonso fourth in his Ferrari, followed by Jenson Button who struggled to match the blinding pace of his team-mate.

Silverstone-based Force India's Vitantonio Liuzzi produced his best qualifying of the year to take sixth ahead of Ferrari's Felipe Massa, Kubica, Adrian Sutil in his Force India and Brackley-based Mercedes' Nico Rosberg.