Montreal, May 23 ( IANS) George Russell made a strong comeback after recent setbacks by claiming pole position for the sprint race at the Canadian Grand Prix on Friday. He led a dominant front-row finish for Mercedes alongside his teammate and Formula One championship leader, Kimi Antonelli.

Russell recorded the fastest lap at Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, edging out Antonelli by just 0.068 seconds in sprint qualifying. This outcome was a welcome lift for Russell after a tough race in Miami and it continued Mercedes’ strong performance on sprint weekends this season.

“This feels great after a tough Miami, but I never doubted myself. I know what I can do,” Russell said after taking pole. “It feels like you are driving a proper F1 car around here, which is how it should be. It all came together today.”

Antonelli, who has won the last three Grands Prix and became Formula One’s youngest championship leader at just 19, acknowledged that his session wasn’t entirely smooth despite finishing second. “The lap was quite bad, to be fair,” the Italian said. “The session was not clean at all. I made a mistake in SQ2 and that threw me off a little bit.”

The young Mercedes driver also mentioned that recent upgrades helped the team regain an advantage. “We brought the upgrade. Of course, we still need to understand the package a bit more since the balance has changed. Overall, it seems to have given us a bit of an edge again,” Antonelli added.

Lando Norris qualified third for McLaren, just ahead of teammate and reigning world champion Oscar Piastri in fourth. Norris remarked that the result was better than expected after a tough start to the weekend.

“After this morning, we were a little bit worried about how far behind we were, due to the lack of confidence in the car,” Norris said. “We made some tweaks, and it seemed to improve significantly. It wasn’t my best lap; I could have done more, but considering the gap to the guys ahead, there wasn’t much more I could have done.”

Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc finished fifth and sixth for Ferrari, while four-time world champion Max Verstappen placed seventh for Red Bull Racing.

This Canadian Grand Prix is hosting the sprint format for the first time. The 100km race will award points to the top eight finishers, with eight points for the winner.

The session also had its share of drama. Liam Lawson did not take part due to a hydraulic issue in practice. Alex Albon crashed his Williams Racing car after hitting a groundhog. Later, Fernando Alonso crashed during the opening phase of qualifying, causing a delay while barriers around the circuit were repaired.

–IANS

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