Listen to Pit Talk here.<\/a><\/p>\nIt was \u201cgood for his confidence\u201d in the words of team boss Toto Wolff, but he had to fight for it.<\/p>\n
Antonelli, despite a scrappy run through qualifying, came within just 0.068 seconds of depriving him of pole. The Italian is yet to qualify off the front row in any qualifying session this year and remains a clear and present danger to Russell executing the untroubled weekend he surely has in his mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a messy session, but still P2, and very close, so the potential is definitely there,\u201d Antonelli said. \u201cWe\u2019ll do better tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a good result not just for Russell but for Mercedes\u2019s first major upgrade of the season.<\/p>\n
The team listed eight new aerodynamic parts for its car this weekend, putting it back in sync with most of the rest of field that brought big updates to Miami.<\/p>\n
The result was a pole position that never really seemed in doubt and by the largest margin in percentage terms since China.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely feeling great,\u201d Russell said. \u201cThe team have done such a great job to bring this forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe obviously saw in Miami McLaren were really close and Ferrari were not too far behind, and on a track like this it\u2019s really excelling.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m pleased to have it on the car, pleased to be back in P1 \u2014 it\u2019s been a little while \u2014 but obviously still a big focus on tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a blow to those who had hoped that the closeness of the competition in Miami was a turning point in the championship.<\/p>\n
That situation is more complicated, however, than Mercedes simply reasserting itself with impunity.<\/p>\n
Busch passes away after sudden illness | 02:02<\/p>\n
McLAREN UPGRADES MISS THE MARK<\/p>\n
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were closely matched for third and fourth, separated by just 0.019 seconds, though they were than 0.3 seconds out of the battle for pole.<\/p>\n
It was an ambivalent result for the team \u2014 almost in the mix but never really threatening.<\/p>\n
More telling, though, is that for the first time in a very long time, McLaren is talking about an upgrade that hasn\u2019t worked.<\/p>\n
The reigning constructors champion came to Montreal equipped with the second phase of new parts to build on its Miami package and to keep up with Mercedes. It was optimistic it was back in the fight.<\/p>\n
After one disrupted hour of practice, however, it took a critical piece \u2014 the front wing \u2014 off the car and elected to qualify without it. It won\u2019t be seen back on the MCL40 for at least another round.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe found during the session that the front wing wasn\u2019t quite delivering what we expected, and we ultimately took the call to run the previous specification front wing, which gave the drivers more confidence and allowed them to unlock more performance,\u201d engineering technical director Neil Houldey said.<\/p>\n
Though the front wing is only one part, it conditions the airflow to most of the rest of the car and it therefore worth more performance that it brings itself.<\/p>\n
But team principal Andrea Stella suggested more than just the front wing has been rejected for this weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking at the fact the car is pretty much the Miami car, it\u2019s a gap that remains encouraging,\u201d he told Sky Sports. \u201cAll things need to be put in perspective, but overall, an encouraging session.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s therefore a bittersweet result.<\/p>\n
With the caveats that this is a particular circuit and it was only sprint qualifying, the fact that the gap between McLaren and Mercedes is back to roughly where it was in Japan despite McLaren lacking half the potency of its major upgrade is a positive sign.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s only positive if it can get the second half of this upgrade package working, and that question won\u2019t be answered likely for another couple of races, until the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix in mid-June.<\/p>\n
Oscar on ‘flattering’ Red Bull rumours | 00:39<\/p>\n
FERRARI\u2019S POWER DEFICIT REVEALED AT SEASON\u2019S FIRST ENGINE CIRCUIT<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a final potentially optimistic note for McLaren in the results.<\/p>\n
A look at the telemetry suggests that Mercedes outwitted McLaren when it comes to energy deployment. McLaren is faster through the first half of the lap, but Mercedes is much faster down the back straight \u2014 at its largest the speed different is 12 kilometres per hour \u2014 which is where all the lap time damage is done.<\/p>\n
This is the reverse of what happened in Miami, where McLaren did a better job with the power unit in the sprint before Mercedes essentially copied its homework and pulled ahead for the grand prix.<\/p>\n
Some of this might be built in. McLaren is running shorter gears, which are locked in ahead of time, and that knocks on to how the battery is recharged around the lap.<\/p>\n
But McLaren wouldn\u2019t need to find much time in engine configuration to get the gap down to striking distance.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no real hope on that front for Ferrari.<\/p>\n
Ferrari was Mercedes\u2019s closest challenge in practice, and after the first runs of SQ3 it was Lewis Hamilton, not Antonelli, who looked most likely to pinch Russell\u2019s pole.<\/p>\n
Without a scruffy final chicane, he might have got himself onto the second row \u2014 but no further.<\/p>\n
Ferrari was worried ahead of this weekend that it wouldn\u2019t have the grunt to compete at such a power-sensitive circuit, and though it\u2019s been more competitive than expected, that gap in engine performance is too large for it to be a genuine challenger.<\/p>\n
The engine is being configured for maximum deployment down the back straight, but the car is still slightly down on Mercedes there \u2014 worse, though, is that having a full battery out of the hairpin is requiring some clear sacrifices down the shorter preceding straights, where it\u2019s 10 kilometres per hour or more slower than the Merc.<\/p>\n
The good news, though, is that the SF-26 is in a happy operating window, with Hamilton revelling in a car he can throw around a track he loves \u2014 and this after he decided not to use the Ferrari simulator in the lead-up to the weekend, preferring instead to prepare in a more traditional style.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s probably the best qualifying session we\u2019ve had for some time,\u201d he said. \u201cThe car felt really fantastic from P1, and we made just subtle changes going into quali.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just happy to be there in the fight. I was having so much fun out there. Also the fact that I didn\u2019t do the sim and it\u2019s the best I\u2019ve felt all year \u2014 I think that\u2019s the way forward for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe worked really hard sifting through the data the last couple of weeks. I found that so much more beneficial in terms of I was able to just focus on training and not be distracted, and then the second part is just really going through with a fine comb [the] ride stability, through-corner balances and mechanical balance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI chose a set-up that we\u2019ve never used before, and it\u2019s transformed the car for me, so I hope that bodes well for the rest of the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
“Complete bulls**t!” Ocon on Haas split | 00:44<\/p>\n
STEP BACK FOR VERSTAPPEN AFTER MIAMI BOOST<\/p>\n
Red Bull Racing\u2019s in-house engine looked like a much better match for the Mercedes, but unfortunately its car is nowhere near as good.<\/p>\n
After the optimism injection of Miami, the team took a reality hit in Canada, where Max Verstappen was never in the mix on his way to seventh and 0.539 seconds off the pace.<\/p>\n
It was a return to some of the fundamental set-up problems that seemed to plague the car in the earlier rounds.<\/p>\n
Remarkably Verstappen said the ride quality of his RB22 was so bad that his legs were being bounced off the pedals over the bumpy semipermanent street circuit.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy feeling in the car was not very good,\u201d he said. \u201cI was struggling a lot with the ride of the car, so over all the bumps I couldn\u2019t put my foot down \u2014 in fact my feet were even flying off the pedals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just made it very difficult to be consistent, and that\u2019s something that we need to investigate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was not great. Of course we are stuck with that for the sprint, but there are some other things to understand, and hopefully that will be a bit better then for quali.\u201d<\/p>\n
Red Bull Racing has a history of turning things around on Friday night, but the challenge of the sprint weekend means it doesn\u2019t have the luxury of multiple practice sessions to trial and validate \u2014 and even the one hour that was available this weekend was heavily interrupted.<\/p>\n
Still, the team enjoyed a reasonable turnaround between the sprint and the grand prix in Miami, so there\u2019s some hope there.<\/p>\n
Positive too \u2014 or is it indicative of the car\u2019s problems? \u2014 is that Isack Hadjar has put his tough Miami weekend behind him, qualifying just 0.101 seconds behind Verstappen after having been close to a second off in Florida.<\/p>\n
But these are small mercies when the car isn\u2019t in a condition to fight for the podium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a bad day to be a groundhog. Formula 1\u2019s annual visit to Montreal\u2019s \u00cele Notre-Dame brings with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":688736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[2095,12295,13273,336290,336277,1724,64,63,261488,336288,336285,2065,9239,241742,336291,256828,81126,817,2755,813,816,54344,24134,75747,336281,3875,841,336279,336280,941,336286,825,336283,336289,5140,938,336275,242632,2041,2067,336278,16280,192129,18882,13777,2111,140753,336276,336287,2643,157090,85,22301,18910,13773,336284,336282,18251,2614,6611],"class_list":["post-688735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-america","tag-andrea-kimi-antonelli","tag-andrea-stella","tag-annual-visit","tag-ascendant-teenage-teammate","tag-asia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-back-straight","tag-bittersweet-result","tag-bumpy-semi-permanent-street","tag-canada","tag-eastern-asia","tag-energy-deployment","tag-engine-circuit","tag-engine-configuration","tag-engine-performance","tag-f1","tag-florida","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-front-row","tag-front-row-lockout","tag-front-wing","tag-fundamental-set-up-problems","tag-george-russell","tag-grand-prix","tag-groundhog-community","tag-happy-operating-window","tag-japan","tag-lap-time-damage","tag-max-verstappen","tag-maximum-deployment","tag-mercedes-upgrades","tag-miami","tag-montreal","tag-multiple-practice-sessions","tag-neil-houldey","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-optimism-injection","tag-pole-position","tag-positive-sign","tag-power-sensitive-circuit","tag-qualifying-session","tag-quebec","tag-real-hope","tag-scruffy-final-chicane","tag-semi-permanent-street-circuit","tag-sky-sports","tag-sole-practice-session","tag-sports","tag-sprint-qualifying","tag-sprint-weekend","tag-team-principal","tag-the-spot","tag-through-corner-balances","tag-title-leader","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-wildlife-encounters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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