George Russell says F1 Canadian GP pole and podium still unbelievable, as he adds on his move against Oscar Piastri and Lewis Hamilton.
No one put any bets on Mercedes to get a podium finish ahead of F1 Canadian GP, leave alone them securing pole and fighting for race win. Considering their recent performances where they have lacked behind the Top 3 teams, this was a distant thought.
A front wing update to go with a changes to floor kind of transformed their fortunes especially in Canada. It remains to be seen if they have genuinely found something or it was one off and circuit specific extravagance in performance.
But one off or not, Russell has a pole against his name even though it was by 0.000s margin against Max Verstappen. To go with it, he did put up a fight for a win and eventually secured his and the team’s first main race podium in third.
It was not easy for Russell who initially lost out to Lando Norris and Verstappen. He regained the position, but dropped back again and a safety car pit stop put him behind Oscar Piastri as well, albeit on a fresher compound to force his way through.
“Absolutely, 100%,” said Russell. “I think if you told us ahead of this weekend, pole position and P3, we may not have believed you, to be honest. It was such a tricky race out there for everybody. You put a millimetre wide and you’re off.
“I think for me, it was just one too many mistakes at key moments that cost us a shot of fighting with these two towards the end of the race,” summed up Russell, who elaborated on why he apologised to his team for an ‘ugly race’ from his end.
Some of the mistakes did cost him which included a moment against Piastri in the final corner which was deemed as racing incident. He had to take evasive action in the final corner when the two came in side-by-side, which cost him a place to Lewis Hamilton.
He then had to barge his way through Hamilton and also Piastri to third. If not for that, there was big chance for him to finish second at least. “I was pushing to pit because I thought the new Medium would have been really competitive at the end,” recalled Russell. “I need to look at it because to be honest, in hindsight, I think we had really great pace.
“Those guys were on the Medium and me being on the Hard, I think we’d have probably been in a really strong position to fight, but, there’s a lot of changes you have made if you know how things plan out retrospectively, but I’m happy with the progress we’ve made. Really proud of the team because we’ve been pushing these upgrades through and it’s really paying dividends.
“And always with Lewis, it’s really hard and fair. When you’re racing with one of the greats, you know that you can trust them. And that was really great to see at the end,” summed up Russell, who had Toto Wolff on his radio at one point to calm him down. It is not often that the Austrian comes on the radio but he had to considering the situation.
“Maybe for a few minutes, we dreamt about a win, but in reality, probably not,” started Wolff. “There are sometimes departments, I call them once in a while. You mean because of my radio call? Sometimes I talk to him. I said calm down a few races ago, I think. Giving a little impulse maybe that can be helpful. Hopefully, hopefully helpful.
“I think it’s good, I know him so well, and I think I know what goes through his mind. When you finish third and fourth where we have been coming from, then it’s a positive race. Three and four is much better than we had previously, what we had in the last few races.
“So that’s good, but I think both drivers saw that there more was up because we could have maybe gained a position or two, and that’s why there is a kind of negative sentiment that prevails, but you would have given them third and fourth before the weekend, probably they would have taken it,” summed up Wolff.
Here’s George Russell about seeing the groundhog
Here’s how F1 Canadian GP panned out
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