Key moment that secured Russell pole position in Canada revealed in telemetry

George Russell pulled a qualifying rabbit out of the hat in Montreal, stealing pole position from teammate Kimi Antonelli in the dying seconds of Q3.

The telemetry reveals exactly where it was won.

The battle between the teammates continues

Mercedes arrived at the Canadian Grand Prix weekend with a major upgrade package intended to further widen the gap to the rest of the field – allegedly by an additional 3 tenths – and cement Mercedes at the front.

Although that wasn’t quite the case on track and both Mercedes drivers looked somewhat vulnerable (especially during the Sprint race), we once again got a straight fight between the two teammates. Up until the final seconds of the Q3 session, it looked as though Kimi had secured yet another pole position, but an unexpected extra run from Russell changed everything.

George Russell went out slightly earlier for his final run in Q3, which allowed him to have two attempts instead of the single run completed by most of the drivers. After his first attempt – which wasn’t even enough for the front row – the Briton recharged his battery and delivered a brilliant lap on what were already worn soft tyres.

In the end, he was just 0.068 seconds faster than Antonelli, who had also driven a flawless lap.

The graph below illustrates exactly where this difference was made:

It was Kimi who actually opened the lap better. He had a stronger run through Turn 2 and later through the high-speed T3 – T4 chicane. However, the tables turned in the second sector of the track, where Russell had been driving exceptionally well all weekend.

He reclaimed the advantage in the T6 – T7 chicane, and by braking later into Turn 8 and getting a better throttle application on the exit of T9, he extended his lead to around a tenth of a second.

Kimi took a better line through Turn 10 and recovered some time there, but it wasn’t enough. Both drivers performed phenomenally well without any major mistakes, leaving the outcome to be decided by the absolute finest margins.

But in Formula 1, these exact details can be enough to completely change the dynamic on track. The momentum the Italian carried vanished quickly, and following his defeat to his teammate in the Sprint race, the pressure has now shifted to his side of the garage.

An interesting data point from the “ideal lap” shows that Antonelli had another tenth of a second of potential improvement in the final sector of the track, which in theory would have handed him pole position.

Specifically, Antonelli had been better through the final chicane during an earlier flying lap, highlighting exactly where room for improvement was left on the table.

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What can we expect from the race?

The Sprint race gave us an excellent indication of how the main race could unfold – provided the weather conditions stayed dry. However, we are almost certainly looking at a wet race, meaning that making any solid data-based predictions is incredibly difficult.

Looking at the race pace from the Sprint, there is no question that Mercedes enters as the clear favourite. McLaren is the only team capable of threatening them at times, but when it comes to a full grand prix distance, their chances remain slim.

It is already well known that George Russell excels at the Canadian circuit, which features very low grip levels and demands immense precision, particularly on chicane exits. While the wet conditions seem to play even further into his hands, absolutely nothing is guaranteed, given that this will be the very first wet race for this generation of Formula 1 cars.

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