For the first time since Hungary 2022, George Russell qualified on pole position in Montreal after setting a dead heat time of 1:12:000 with Max Verstappen. While the 26-year-old Briton got pole courtesy of setting his time before Verstappen, he strived to polish his pace for qualifying by referring to Lewis Hamilton’s data after FP3.
Russell revealed this in a post-qualifying interaction on BBC’s F1 Chequered Flag podcast. He highlighted how Hamilton was driving quite well during Saturday morning’s practice session and was “miles ahead” of him.
Thus, Russell stated, “So I had to look at his data to try and understand what that was because these tires are so sensitive. Then I saw Lewis was doing something unique with the tires. I implemented that into Q1 and straightaway, we were top of the time sheets.”
Mercedes were surprisingly the team to beat in Montreal and that had been the case since the weekend started. After two rain-marred sessions on Friday, the picture became clearer as the Silver Arrows stamped their authority during qualifying.
Verstappen did make a last-gasp attempt in Q3 to take pole position, though. However, he ended up with exactly the same time to the last decimal as Russell had set during his initial run in Q3. The overall field spread in qualifying was so close that despite being only 0.280 seconds off his teammate, Hamilton ended up only seventh.
Going into the Grand Prix on Sunday, the seven-time champion would hope to make up places and finish as close to his teammate as possible. While Russell is optimistically gunning for the race win, Hamilton has his work cut out with several podium contenders starting ahead of him.
How did Lewis Hamilton end up in P7 in contrast to George Russell?
Hamilton was looking quite quick during Saturday’s practice session as Russell highlighted. Both Mercedes cars were consistently topping the time sheets in the first two parts of qualifying as well. However, come Q3, the #44 driver could not get his tires in the right window and fell short to get in the mix for pole.
Hamilton highlighted in his post-qualifying comments about his struggles with the tires. Regardless, he is looking to take the fight in the Grand Prix with some cautious optimism. The Briton knows that the cars ahead of him are quick enough to make life difficult for him in Montreal.
Thus, Hamilton will need to extract every ounce of performance from the upgraded W15 to progress up the order in the race. The new upgraded front wing has enabled Mercedes to iron out some of its issues and their improved pace in Montreal is a result of the same.
“The team’s done such a great job pushing the car forwards. It’s been feeling great all weekend so hopefully tomorrow is a decent race.”
Tricky conditions in qualifying but Lewis has been on the pace all weekend long. We know he’ll will be giving it his all tomorrow pic.twitter.com/ze6QSTuP62
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) June 8, 2024
There is positivity coming out of the Brackley camp and Russell’s buoyant reactions after qualifying reflect that Mercedes may have turned a corner on their struggles. However, before the Silver Arrows start counting their chickens, it is pertinent to note that they have had similar promising showings in the past two years [Brazil 2022, Spain 2023, and Singapore 2023].
As a result, Hamilton and Russell will be wary that their Montreal performance could be another false dawn if they fall short of this new performance benchmark in Barcelona, Austria, and Silverstone.
