Mercedes delighted with pace, but Russell and Hamilton left Montreal frustrated

Having began from pole place, George Russell ended up third in Montreal to safe Mercedes’ first podium end of 2024, albeit the Briton blamed himself for having made “too many errors” within the wild race.

George Russell had a really robust weekend in Montreal. The British driver secured pole place in a nail-biting battle that sew him and three-time world champion Max Verstappen set an an identical lap time.

The King’s Lynn-born driver then went on to steer the opening a part of the race, but he appeared to battle for tempo in drying situations when the sector nonetheless used intermediates. Although a late security automotive interval motivated Mercedes to name their drivers in for a brand new set of mediums that noticed each drivers show eye-catching tempo within the closing phases of the 70-lap Canadian Grand Prix, Russell completed in P3.

It was nonetheless an amazing consequence for Mercedes as they’ve secured the primary podium end of the yr.

“I’m disenchanted with myself immediately. I made too many errors that set us again and price us an opportunity of victory. I used to be actually pushing the boundaries on the market. That mentioned, it feels nice to be disenchanted with P3.

“We’ve made small steps over the previous few races and to return to Canada, get pole place and a podium is basically encouraging. We’ve been one of many quickest automobiles on observe all weekend, so we’ve undoubtedly made progress. There are many positives to remove from right here.

“The situations had been extremely difficult on the market. Put a wheel even one millimetre off line and you’d be in hassle. Unfortunately, the errors I made got here with penalties because it let different automobiles previous.

“Other drivers made errors too, but they didn’t come at the same cost. We were still able to battle back to the podium though with the pace we had. We will continue to work hard, develop the car, and I’m looking forward to heading to Barcelona,” concluded Russell.

The first a part of the race noticed Hamilton struggle Alonso laborious and finally made his method via within the opening pit stops to run behind his workforce mate. The seven-time world champion appeared very robust on the slick tyres, but he needed to accept fourth-placed end which has been nonetheless his greatest consequence up to now in 2024.

“We scored some good points for the team today. We’re also looking like we’ve made a step closer to the front this weekend which is really encouraging,” began the Briton his assesment.

“Thank you a lot to everybody at Brackley and Brixworth who has labored so laborious to ship our current updates. It has moved us in the precise route, and we’ll proceed to place the hassle in to proceed that progress.

“On my side, it wasn’t the best weekend. We had the pace to be fighting higher up but we ultimately ended up with P4. I’ll go away and work out what I need to do to come back stronger. I made too many mistakes overall but the positive I will take away is the performance of the car,” added Hamilton.