George Russell said there was “more to come” from Mercedes after he took their first pole position for nearly a year at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Mercedes have been saying for a while that they felt they had finally found the right path under the new regulations that were introduced in 2022 and which brought their eight years of success in Formula 1 to a crashing halt.
A series of upgrades introduced to the car since Miami three races ago have slowly been working their effect, and for the first time in a long time the former champions have looked the fastest cars in the field this weekend.
The Briton delivered with style around Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
One line from Russell seemed to sum up the situation best after a gripping qualifying session in which the two drivers on the front row set exactly the same lap time, the Mercedes securing pole ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by virtue of achieving it first.
“It’s sort of come from nowhere,” Russell said. “But maybe not a surprise with the upgrades we’ve been bringing.”
Canada was the first race in which both Mercedes cars have had the full upgrade package that has slowly built up on the car.
New bodywork in Miami, followed by a new floor in Imola and then finally a new front wing, which only Russell had in Monaco, have revised the aerodynamics of the car. And Mercedes’ simulations say that they should perform even better at subsequent races.
It was the difference the front wing made in Monaco that really lit up Mercedes’ expectations.
Until Monaco, the car has been balanced in either high-speed corners or slow, but not both. Get it right in the high-speed, and there was a lack of front grip in the slow; get it right in the slow, and there was untameable oversteer in the fast.
The front wing has transformed it, and made what is known as the “through-corner balance” much better.
Russell said: “We brought these upgrades to Monaco, which has been a really challenging circuit for us in the past, and we were 0.1secs from the front row and we thought going into Montreal we had a shot here.
“It’s just turning really nicely through the corners. We struggled a lot with understeer before.
“Last year, we had a lot of oversteer and we’ve been trying to find the halfway house between what we had last year and what we had this year.
“And it feels like we’re sort of dialling in that sweet spot right now. So it feels like something we’ve been saying for a long time, in all honesty. But you know, just really a sense of relief to actually see it translate into a pole position.”
Despite winning in Monaco two weeks ago through Charles Leclerc, Ferrari were not in the fight for pole because neither driver could get out of Q2.
Leclerc will start 11th with team-mate Carlos Sainz alongside him in 12th and both drivers said they had “no grip at all”.
