George Russell has taken pole position in Canada and is heading for a perfect weekend.
The Englishman won the Mercedes duel with World Championship leader Kimi Antonelli, relegating the Italian to second place by 68 thousandths of a second. World champion Lando Norris came third in the McLaren ahead of his teammate Oscar Piastri.
In the race on Sunday (10 p.m. CEST/Sky), Russell is now aiming for his first Grand Prix victory since the season opener in Melbourne at the beginning of March. Most recently, Antonelli had won the main race three times in a row, but in Montreal Russell showed himself to be defensive right from the start: on Friday he took pole position for the sprint and then won the short race on Saturday.
During two of Antonelli’s maneuvers, the two Mercedes cars almost collided. Antonelli complained on the radio and team boss Toto Wolff spoke up to end the discussions. The duel for the World Championship seems to be getting more intense on the fifth race weekend of the season, with Antonelli starting on Sunday with an 18-point lead.
Record world champion Lewis Hamilton in the Ferrari will be in fifth place on the grid, followed by Max Verstappen in the Red Bull. Nico Hülkenberg was eleventh again in the Audi – as he did in sprint qualifying and more often this year. This gives the Emmericher a chance to score his first points in the German factory team.
