{"id":687482,"date":"2026-05-23T00:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T00:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/687482\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T00:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T00:42:09","slug":"mercedes-russell-takes-pole-ahead-of-antonelli-for-sprint-race-at-f1s-canadian-gp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/687482\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercedes&#8217; Russell takes pole ahead of Antonelli for sprint race at F1\u2019s Canadian GP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>George Russell won pole for Saturday\u2019s sprint race at the Canadian Grand Prix, beating teammate and Formula One points leader Kimi Antonelli to secure a one-two for Mercedes on the starting grid.<\/p>\n<p>Russell, last year\u2019s race winner in\u00a0Montreal, posted a fastest lap of one minute 12.965 seconds in qualifying Friday for the third sprint race of the season, happening for the first time in\u00a0Montreal.<\/p>\n<p>He edged Antonelli by 0.068 as Mercedes \u2014 winners of all four grands prix this season \u2014 introduced new upgrades this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Reigning F1 champion Lando Norris will line up third with McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri in the second row.<\/p>\n<p>Ferrari\u2019s Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc sat fifth and sixth, followed by Red Bull\u2019s Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar in seventh and eighth.<\/p>\n<p>F1 introduced sprints in 2021. The shortened races cover roughly 100 kilometres, about one-third the distance of a grand prix, for a maximum of eight points. For reference, a grand prix victory is worth 25.<\/p>\n<p>Antonelli, a 19-year-old Italian, has won three straight grand prix races to top the drivers\u2019 championship with 100 points, 20 ahead of second-place Russell.<\/p>\n<p>The day started with a disrupted practice session as Williams\u2019 Alex Albon crashed into a groundhog on the exit of Turn 7, causing significant damage to his car and forcing him out of sprint qualifying.<\/p>\n<p>Located on \u00cele Notre-Dame in the middle of the St. Lawrence River, the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is well known for featuring wildlife, especially groundhogs.<\/p>\n<p>Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton also hit one last year during the grand prix, calling it \u201cdevastating.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 22, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>\t\tKeep it Factual<\/p>\n<p>Add CityNews Montreal as a trusted source on Google to see more local stories from us.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=montreal.citynews.ca\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"add-trusted-source-badge\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779121264_781_google-trusted-badge.png\" alt=\"Add as a preferred source on Google\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell won pole for Saturday\u2019s sprint race at the Canadian Grand Prix, beating teammate and Formula One&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":687483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-687482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}