George Russell\u2019s perfect weekend continued Saturday at the Canadian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
Hours after winning the sprint race, Russell charged to the pole position for the third consecutive year as Mercedes locked out the front row for Sunday\u2019s main event.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old Brit appeared off the pace after making a pit stop in the final qualifying segment, then he surged to the top of the leaderboard with a thrilling last-gasp lap around Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.<\/p>\n
“It is the most exhilarating feeling in the world when it comes last minute, out of nowhere,” he screamed over the team radio.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are times when you expect to be on pole, and every lap you do is the quickest. But the times when you are fighting for it and you’re never up there, and then it comes together on that final lap to be the one, it’s the best feeling in the world,\u201d he later added. \u201cThat rush of adrenalin within the space of 10 seconds is what we live for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russell clocked a time of one minute 12.578s seconds, edging teammate and Formula One points leader Kimi Antonelli by 0.068 \u2014 the exact same gap between the two drivers in sprint qualifying.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m going to remember that number for a very long time,\u201d Antonelli said.<\/p>\n
The Mercedes drivers will line up side by side after clashing in a fiery sprint race earlier Saturday, when Russell and Antonelli made contact but avoided a crash.<\/p>\n
Russell fended off a pair of attacks from Antonelli on the sixth of 23 laps as the drivers went wheel-to-wheel into Turn 1, sending the 19-year-old Italian into the grass.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was very naughty,\u201d a furious Antonelli said in one of several complaints as emotions boiled over on the team radio.<\/p>\n
George Russell\u2019s perfect weekend continued Saturday at the Canadian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
Hours after winning the sprint race, Russell charged to the pole position for the third consecutive year as Mercedes locked out the front row for Sunday\u2019s main event.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old Brit appeared off the pace after making a pit stop in the final qualifying segment, then he surged to the top of the leaderboard with a thrilling last-gasp lap around Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.<\/p>\n
“It is the most exhilarating feeling in the world when it comes last minute, out of nowhere,” he screamed over the team radio.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are times when you expect to be on pole, and every lap you do is the quickest. But the times when you are fighting for it and you’re never up there, and then it comes together on that final lap to be the one, it’s the best feeling in the world,\u201d he later added. \u201cThat rush of adrenalin within the space of 10 seconds is what we live for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russell clocked a time of one minute 12.578s seconds, edging teammate and Formula One points leader Kimi Antonelli by 0.068 \u2014 the exact same gap between the two drivers in sprint qualifying.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m going to remember that number for a very long time,\u201d Antonelli said.<\/p>\n
The Mercedes drivers will line up side by side after clashing in a fiery sprint race earlier Saturday, when Russell and Antonelli made contact but avoided a crash.<\/p>\n
Russell fended off a pair of attacks from Antonelli on the sixth of 23 laps as the drivers went wheel-to-wheel into Turn 1, sending the 19-year-old Italian into the grass.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was very naughty,\u201d a furious Antonelli said in one of several complaints as emotions boiled over on the team radio.<\/p>\n
Antonelli leads second-place Russell by 18 points after winning the past three Grands Prix, putting pressure on his more experienced teammate to swing the momentum in his favour this weekend.<\/p>\n
So far, Russell has answered on a track where he has thrived.<\/p>\n
Russell won the Canadian Grand Prix from pole last year after dropping from first to third in 2024.<\/p>\n
Now the question is whether he can do it in the rain, with forecasts suggesting drivers could face wet conditions for the first time this season on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is going to be risky, it will be challenging, probably isn’t going to very pleasant, but it’s part of the game,\u201d Russell said, noting that this season\u2019s tires are not expected to respond well to the rain. \u201cIt’s not going to be easy. Wet races at the best of times aren’t easy, but the two of us are in the best place to start it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Canadian Grand Prix is the fifth of 22 stops on the F1 calendar after the Iran war forced cancellations in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell\u2019s perfect weekend continued Saturday at the Canadian Grand Prix. Hours after winning the sprint race, Russell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-689551","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\/689551","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=689551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}