MONTREAL — George Russell turned a hot lap during the final stages of qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix that landed the Mercedes driver on the pole for Sunday’s race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Russell turned a lap of one minute and 10.899 seconds to steal the top starting spot from four-time Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen by a mere .160 seconds.
“Today was awesome in front of this amazing crowd,” smiled Russell. “To be honest that last lap was probably one of the most exhilarating laps of my life, because on my steering wheel you’ve got the delta and I just saw every corner I was going one-tenth quicker, one-tenth quicker.
“I got into the last corner and I was six-tenths up and I was like, ‘this lap is mighty’, and crossing the line seeing we were P1 was a real surprise but I was so chuffed with it.”
Verstappen was pleased with second.
“Overall this weekend has been quite positive for us,” the Red Bull driver said. “As soon as I jumped in the car in FP1 the balance was there and I was fairly happy with our overall performance. FP2 was slightly trickier but in qualifying we made the right call with the tires as we felt better with the mediums. I feel like the balance of the car was there and we maximized our performance.
“We need to understand more about the degradation of our tires and what was going on there as we were missing overall grip to fight for Pole. However, I don’t think there was much more we could have really done today and I’m happy with second. Hopefully tomorrow we can have a good start and look after our tires. Our car can be trickier in the corners but there will be a long race ahead of us and hopefully it will be a strong race for us.”
Championship leader Piastri was left to settle for third in the McLaren on the soft tires, while the other Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli slotted into fourth place.
Lewis Hamilton was the lead Ferrari in fifth, just ahead of Fernando Alonso in sixth for Aston Martin. McLaren’s Lando Norris, meanwhile, ended in seventh, with Charles Leclerc following for Ferrari in eighth.
