George Russell secured his second ever career pole position after coming out on top in a dead heat with Max Verstappen for the fastest time in qualifying – and he believes learnings taken from looking at Lewis Hamilton’s impressive FP3 session were key in helping him on his way to the fastest time.
Russell had set his initial lap in Q3 on a set of used tyres that he had ran in Q2, setting a 1:12.000, that Verstappen would later match with his new tyre run, but as the Dutchman posted his time after, he slotted into second place. Russell, on the other hand, failed to find any improvement in his final run, and although he set the fastest final sector, he couldn’t improve his overall lap time.
And that wasn’t exclusive to Russell, as his team-mate Lewis Hamilton also didn’t improve in his final lap and crucially could only manage seventh on the grid, despite being just under three tenths back. Speaking after the session, Russell revealed that Q3 was Mercedes’ weakest session of the weekend, and believes that there’s more potential and pace yet to be unleashed from the W15 heading into the race in Montreal:
“[It’s] such a buzz, it’s been a while since we’ve experienced this feeling,” said Russell. “So much hard work going on behind the scenes back in Brackley [and] at Brixworth. It’s been a little while to be able to sort of get back in the fight, and we’ve almost felt like all of that hard work hasn’t been paying off.
“But I think these last two race weekends have really shown that, and as I said, we’ve been so fast all weekend, Q3 was probably our worst session of the three, [so that] bodes well for tomorrow.
“My lap on the used tyre was really, really strong in Q3 and I was expecting to find about three or four tenths for the second lap on the new tyre, [but] we actually just didn’t, it didn’t click, but it was fortunate enough the first lap was good enough for pole.”
Mercedes had looked strong on Friday, but ever-changing conditions meant no true read could be taken from the lap times. But a perfectly dry FP3 showed both cars in strong form, especially Lewis Hamilton, who led the session comfortably, nearly four tenths ahead of Russell’s best effort.
The now two-time F1 pole-sitter admitted he had to analyse the seven-time champion’s data in order to learn more about his techniques around the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve ahead of qualifying, and that helped him “a huge amount”:
“To be honest, this weekend’s been really challenging to know because of the conditions on [Friday], you’ve had rain around all weekend, and then this morning [in the dry] Lewis [Hamilton] was absolutely flying.
“I had to look a lot into his data to try and understand what he was doing differently, and to be honest that helped me a huge amount ahead of this qualifying.
“[I am] just so glad that we could pull it off, because I feel like we really deserve it for all of this hard work we’ve been putting in, and the car’s been feeling awesome this weekend.”
The Briton added that Mercedes’ strong pace around Montreal was vindicated by their qualifying run plan, which allowed them to save tyres in Q1 and Q2, something that’s generally only possible if you’re right at the sharp end of the timing tables:
“The conditions were changing [in Q3], I think we were one of the last to do our laps.
“My lap in Q2 was really, really strong, and my first lap in Q3 was really good, only I think two tenths off what I did in Q2 on the old tyre,” he explained. “So I was expecting to go probably three or four tenths ahead, like it’s been all weekend. But the tyres just didn’t quite feel right, so it shows how sensitive everything was.
“And that was really the first time that it didn’t quite go our way, but as I said, it goes to show how strong our pace has been this weekend. In Q1 we didn’t need to use two sets of tyres, that was a first, didn’t really need to use two sets in Q2 either, you know, it’s sort of come from nowhere, but maybe not as surprised with the upgrades we’ve been bringing.”
Looking ahead to the race, the one-time grand prix winner is looking to double his tally with a car that is “really fast” at Montreal, but is wary that the weather and track conditions could play a big part in determining which team will come out victorious on race day:
“I think it’s going to be a tough race for everybody to be honest, graining seems to be an issue and this new track surface, nobody really knows how it’s going to pan out, but, you know, we’ve got to go for victory where the car is genuinely really, really fast at the moment, but it’s going to be a long race, I think.
“As soon as you fall off that cliff of the tyres tomorrow, it’s going to be really difficult to recover, so, yeah, it could be a bit of a strategic game, maybe not as extreme as we saw in Monaco last week, but maybe something similar.”
