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The F1 Canadian GP has got of to an exciting start. In sprint qualifying, the Mercedes and McLaren teams proved dominant, with George Russel managing to muscle out team-mate Kimi Antonelli and grab the pole with the third spot going to Lando Norris. The one-two for Mercedes was not easy as there was quite a dramatic end to qualifying. The gap between Russel and Antonelli was just 0.068s! The photo finish could not have been any closer.
While Russell may have pipped Antonelli, the driver is still 20 points behind the table-leading Italian teenager. Antonelli has awed everyone with his dominant showing, racing to fabulous wins over the last three Grands Prix. Were Mercedes upgrades responsible for the one-two, or their drivers and support team read the track to perfection?
While that may not really be clear at the moment, what is true is that McLaren's Lando Norris had to recover from a mistake in SQ3. He was not going to catch the Mercedes drivers after that. However, he did manage to deny the third spot to team-mate Oscar Piastri. Still, McLaren cars were some three tenths of a second behind the pole sitter.
Having said that, it was expected that Russell will do well at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve as he had converted a pole into a win last year here.
However, Ferrari seemed to lose pace after showing some great pace. Lewis Hamilton's performance was good enough to beat everyone by topping SQ1. But he dropped to second in SQ2. He qualified fifth, but was notably ahead of Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc. Max Verstappen has been off the pace at Red Bull for quite some time and this time was no different, qualifying in seventh. Isack Hadjar bagged the eighth spot, Arvid Lindblad ninth and Carlos Sainz 10th.
However, Alex Albon did not manage to finish the qualifying part for a shocking reason - he hit a groundhog in practice!
Driver Time
George Russell 1:12.965
Kimi Antonelli 1:13.033
Lando Norris 1:13.280
Oscar Piastri 1:13.299
Lewis Hamilton 1:13.326
