George Russell has revealed that a change in car direction by Mercedes almost cost him his latest Canadian Grand Prix pole.
A small mistake on his first push lap in the top-10 shoot-out at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve left Russell without a time on the board going into the second runs.
The British driver was first out and did enough to slot into third, but with enough fuel in his W17 to push again as effectively last man on track, going on to beat team-mate Kimi Antonelli by 0.068s to secure his fourth consecutive pole position at this event.
“It’s always challenging coming back from a sprint race, the car feels very different as you’re into the qualifying format,” said Russell who, earlier in the day, had claimed victory in the 23-lap one-third distance event.
“We made some changes. As a team, we need to review if that was the right direction.
“That last lap came from nowhere, and it’s such a great feeling when it’s such a challenging session. You just put it all together, and that last lap, to throw yourself up the leaderboard was epic.”
Pressed on those changes, Russell indicated that Mercedes opted to lean towards a wet-weather set-up given the constant rain forecast for Sunday.
“Based on the forecast for tomorrow, it may have hurt us a little bit for now,” said Russell. “It took the car out of sync a little.
“Kimi was definitely more competitive than I in that session, but we weren’t as clear ahead of everybody else as we were yesterday, so it was definitely a challenge.
“But as I say, I just managed to redial my driving for that last lap, and put it together.”
As to his rivalry with Antonelli, which spilt over in the sprint as the young Italian felt Russell had gone too far in defending his position into Turn 1 on lap 6 as he was forced off track, Russell said: “We’ve had a good chat since this morning.
“We’re both racing drivers, we know what to do, we both respect one another, so we will go racing.
“We hope it’s just the two of us battling, but we saw today how competitive everybody else is, and tomorrow looks to be wet, and that’s going to be a whole new challenge as well.
“To be honest, it’s not really what we’re thinking about now. We just want to ensure we’re standing on the top step.”
