After tying with Max Verstappen, George Russell secured pole position in Canada.
George Russell has said looking at Lewis Hamilton’s data “helped me a huge amount” towards pole position in Canada, after learning what he was doing differently to him.
Hamilton had topped FP3 in Montréal by a healthy margin earlier on Saturday, but it was Russell who took pole position after setting an identical lap time to Max Verstappen in Q3 – but held onto pole after setting a 1:12.000 before the Red Bull driver.
George Russell: Lewis Hamilton data ‘helped me a huge amount’ in qualifying
Hamilton’s form in FP3 had put him in the frame for pole position in qualifying, with both Mercedes drivers having been in form earlier on Saturday.
On Sunday, Russell will take the pole position ahead of Verstappen. He expressed his admiration for his Mercedes team and credited their hard work at their two bases, stating that this achievement is a testament to the progress they are making.
“After qualifying, Russell expressed his excitement, saying, ‘Yeah, it’s truly exhilarating!'”
“It has been quite some time since we last felt this way, with a great deal of effort put in behind the scenes at Brackley and Brixworth. It took a while for us to regain our fighting spirit.”
We’ve had moments where we doubted if our hard work was worth it, but the recent race weekends have proven otherwise. We’ve been incredibly fast throughout the entire weekend, with Q3 being our weakest session. Overall, this performance gives us confidence for tomorrow.
Due to the unpredictable weather conditions in Montréal throughout the entire weekend and Russell, along with the other drivers, performing slower than his teammate in FP3, the Mercedes driver decided to analyze Hamilton’s data before the qualifying session in order to gain some insights.
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Consequently, he acknowledged the valuable insights he gained from analyzing the data of the seven-time Canadian Grand Prix-winner, which greatly aided him during the qualifying session.
Russell clarified that this weekend has been quite difficult to comprehend due to the circumstances experienced yesterday.
There has been rain throughout the entire weekend, but this morning Lewis was soaring through the skies.
“He had a significant lead over me, so I had to carefully examine his data in order to grasp the differences in our approaches. Honestly, it greatly benefited me in preparing for this qualifying round. I’m extremely pleased that we were able to achieve success because I believe we truly earned it through our relentless dedication and the exceptional performance of our car throughout the weekend.”
Regarding the race, Russell will be joined by Verstappen on the front row, with Norris following closely behind in his McLaren, missing pole position by just 0.021s.
Due to limited practice on long runs, the Mercedes driver anticipates challenges in accurately assessing the full race distance.
He stated that, honestly, he believed it would be a challenging race for everyone.
“Graining appears to be a concern, and the outcome of this new track surface remains uncertain. Nevertheless, our objective remains the same – we must strive for victory.”
“The car is currently extremely fast, but the upcoming race will be quite lengthy. Once your tires wear out tomorrow, recovering will be exceedingly challenging.”
“It has the potential to be somewhat of a strategic game, perhaps not as intense as what we witnessed in Monaco recently, but possibly along similar lines.”
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