George Russell takes pole at Canadian Grand Prix ahead of Max Verstappen

Mercedes-AMG’s George Russell and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen posted identical 1’12.000 times during the qualifying session of the Canadian Grand Prix, but Russell earned pole position for the race on Sunday because he set his time earlier in the final session. The crowd fell nearly silent as Verstappen took a final shot in the closing seconds of Q3 to set a new fast lap, and an audible gasp followed by applause confirmed that his tying time put the two drivers on equal footing but with Russell ahead on the grid.

“It’s been a great day! It was such a tight fight for pole position,” Russell said. “The previous few races I’ve been a matter of hundredths of a second behind the car ahead, so it’s nice to be on the upside of that today! In the end, Q3 was difficult. I did my best lap of the session in Q2, and I didn’t improve on my last lap in Q3. I wasn’t sure therefore whether I had taken pole position as I crossed the line.”

McLaren finished strong with Lando Norris taking third — just two hundredths of a second off pole — and Oscar Piastri right behind in fourth. Team RB’s Daniel Ricciardo finished fifth ahead of Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Mercedes-AMG’s Lewis Hamilton.

Ferrari had a disappointing qualifying session, both of its drivers failing to get out of Q2 and into the top 10. Charles Leclerc will start 11th, his teammate Carlos Sainz directly behind in 12th.

The full Canadian Grand Prix qualifying results:

George Russell
Max Verstappen
Lando Norris
Oscar Piastri
Daniel Ricciardo
Fernando Alonso
Lewis Hamilton
Yuki Tsunoda
Lance Stroll
Alexander Albon
Charles Leclerc
Carlos Sainz
Logan Sargeant
Kevin Magnussen
Pierre Gasly
Sergio Perez
Valtteri Bottas
Esteban Ocon
Nico Hulkenberg
Zhou Guanyu