Russell hails F1 Canadian GP pole as “one of the most exhilarating laps” of his career

George Russell waxed lyrical over his pole position for the Canadian Grand Prix as the Mercedes Formula 1 driver branded it “one of the most exhilarating laps” in his racing career.

The Briton clinched a 1m10.899s to topple provisional polesitter Max Verstappen at the very end of qualifying, reinstating the front row of the grid from last year’s race – this time, with a 0.16-second gap between them.

Russell had posted the best time in Friday’s FP2 session, but appeared to drop back slightly in FP3 to Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc.

After opening Q3 on the soft tyre, Russell switched to mediums and was much more comfortable; this was reflected in his final time being six-tenths quicker than his initial final-session effort.

“Today was awesome, in front of this amazing crowd as well,” said Russell. “To get the pole – to be honest, that last lap was probably one of the most exhilarating laps of my life.

“On my steering wheel you’ve got the delta, and I just saw every corner I was going one-tenth quicker, one-tenth quicker, and I got into the last corner and I was six tenths up [on his previous lap].

“I was like ‘right, this lap is mighty’ and crossing the line, seeing we were P1, was a real surprise. But I was so, so chuffed with it.”

Asked about the prospect of starting next to Verstappen on the grid, following their contretemps at Barcelona two weeks ago, Russell seemed to brush off the idea that he would not be aggressive into the first corner, noting that “I’ve got a few more points in my licence to play with, so let’s see”.

Verstappen, for his part, was relatively pleased to put his Red Bull on the front row – as the team appeared to reverse the braking issues that the world champion battled with in FP2 and FP3.

Radio messages indicated that Verstappen was struggling with overall bite on the brakes, but he was nonetheless able to stitch a strong run together – also on mediums – to clinch second on the grid.

“The car actually was in a good window. You need to be quite efficient on the straights, which I think we are in general. Overall, I’m very happy with qualifying,” he said.

“I think the car was again working quite well. Then of course the tough choice was the tyres, which one to use, but I think we did the right thing.”

Asked if second was the better grid position, Verstappen noted that “I would always pick P1. You just start a little bit more forward, but it’s fine.

“We’ll see what we can do tomorrow. I’m already very happy with what we achieved today to be on the front row and hopefully tomorrow we can have a solid race.”