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The Mercedes drought was a long, difficult affair. Little wonder then that they relished the chance to quench their thirst in qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix, where George Russell won pole by the slimmest of margins, in fact no gap at all with a time exactly equal to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
It was perhaps the tightest session so far this year and at the death Russell was in first place with a time of 1 minute 12,000 seconds, a lap then level with Verstappen at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. The world champion was denied pole as Russell set the time first.
Russell and Mercedes were unfazed by how close it was, just that returning to first place was an achievement for a team that has fought so hard since the new rules from 2022. It is the team’s first pole since Hungary in 2023 and they have now no win since Brazil 2022 when Russell took the flag. Sunday’s race in Montreal was their best experience since then, with the car’s speed truly impressive.
They had brought their new front wing to Canada, after a series of small improvements in recent races amid optimism that they could make a real step forward, and it proved to be. The car looked better balanced, handled with more confidence than it had all season and both Russell and his team-mate Lewis Hamilton were buoyed to finally have a decent ride under them. They had real pace in the low-speed corners and especially in the chicanes on the straights, where the ability to attack the curbs could make a lap, although Hamilton, who was close to his team-mate throughout, could not improve on his final run and he dropped down the order to seventh.
However, there was a real sense that Mercedes might have turned the corner.
“Every lap we did this weekend, the car felt good,” Russell said. “These are the first two races we’ve run with the upgrades and it’s looking good so far.
“Going into the last six months, we’ve been able to fine-tune what we want from the car. Let’s see if this performance is sustainable, but I see no reason why not and I think we have more to come.”
A beaming Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team boss who had put on a stern face for so long, also admitted with a smile that they were finally “going in the right direction”.
It was a qualifying session where the weather was of the essence after the rain at the weekend as the track was rubberised, gaining traction every lap. The times improved as the clock counted down, with the final laps proving absolutely decisive as Mercedes looked like favorites for the first time in over a year. A once staple of the sport that seemed almost out of the ordinary was evidence of their fall from grace.
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They knew the car was good, but Russell still had to do it, and he did it with admirable finesse and composure on a demanding track.
In the first final heats, Verstappen started in pole position, but Russell and Hamilton dominated their opening laps, within two-tenths of each other, with Russell three-tenths ahead of Verstappen, setting a time of 1 minute 12 seconds.
With new tyres, Verstappen was back at it, fastest in the first sector, throwing the car on the lap and level with the British driver to one-thousandths of a second. Russell didn’t improve, but he had done enough. Indeed, potentially enough if he can hold on to his first-turn lead to offer Mercedes a well of victory from which they can drink deeply on Sunday.
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