MONTREAL — George Russell beat Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli and McLaren’s Lando Norris to win pole position for the Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix with a last-gasp effort during qualifying Saturday at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Russell, who had won the Sprint in Montreal earlier on Saturday, posted a 1 minute and 12.578 seconds with his final effort to finish just 0.068 seconds clear of Antonelli as Mercedes locked out the front row for Sunday’s 70-lap race.
“We made some changes as a team, we need to review after if that was the right direction. Then obviously that last lap came from nowhere, and it was just a great feeling when it was such a challenging session,” Russell said. “To put it all together on that last lap to throw yourself up the leaderboard was epic.”
The Briton had been on the back foot in the final segment of qualifying having aborted his first flying lap and he was down the order with his first completed run.
But Russell pulled out the fastest lap at the very end as the Mercedes duo beat Norris and the second McLaren of Oscar Piastri, with Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton suffering a mistake on his second run that left him fifth.
Max Verstappen headed Red Bull teammate Isack Hadjar in P6 after complaining about the straightline speed of his car, with the top 10 completed by the second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls) and Franco Colapinto (Alpine).
