Pirelli explains how Russell went quickest on Friday on the medium tyres

Formula One's sole tyre manufacturer Pirelli has explained the reason why Mercedes driver George Russell managed to set the benchmark time on the opening day of the Canadian Grand Prix on the medium tyres.

Mercedes driver George Russell was quickest come the end of the first day of the Canadian Grand Prix weekend. The British driver stopped the clocks in 1m12.123s in the second free practice session, a time just 28 thousandths of a second quicker than Lando Norris (McLaren).

It was a strong showing for Mercedes as Andrea Kimi Antonelli was third in 1m12.411s. It’s worth noting that the top seven drivers on the time sheet were all driving cars fitted with the Mercedes power unit.

Charles Leclerc and Lance Stroll failed to set a time in FP2: the Ferrari driver took no part in proceedings, as his car was damaged in FP1, while the local driver clipped the wall at the exit to turn 7, breaking the front left suspension.

Having brought their hardest tyres to Barcelona, Formula One's sole tyre manufacturer has supplied teams with the softest compounds at this weekend's Canadian Grand Prix.

This is the third time this season that the softest trio of compounds features on track. That means, after appearing for the first time in Imola and again in Monaco, the C6 will be in use, alongside its closest relatives, the C5 as Medium and the C4 as Hard. The selection is therefore one step softer than last year when the chosen compounds were the C3, C4 and C5.

As for the compounds, the C6 and C5 did most of the work on the first day of the Montreal weekend. In fact, Sauber was the only team to use a set of Hards, while the nine other squads restricted their work to the red-walled and the yellow-banded compounds.

Reflecting on the opening day at Montreal, Pirelli's chief engineer Simone Berra confirmed that there is only a tiny performance difference between the C6 and C5 compound based on the experiences from the first two practice sessions.

“It’s been a very interesting first day, for several reasons. For the third time we brought the new C6 and were able to confirm its characteristics.

"It is undoubtedly pretty close to the C5 in terms of outright performance, but all things considered it is still faster. The fact that the fastest time of the day was set on Mediums is not that significant, as the track conditions evolved considerably over the course of the two sessions and from one session to the next.

Russell set his benchmark time on Pirelli's medium compound, with drivers having struggled to extract the peak performance from the red-walled tyres. It has not been a new phenomenon for drivers as they experienced similar issues at Imola when the C6 rubber made its debut.

Speaking of the performance difference between the C5 and C6 tyres, Berra stated: "Furthermore, Russell adopted a different approach to usual, running first on the Soft and then the Medium, so that on the latter compound, he benefited from the increased grip level as the track rubbered-in.

"Finally, it’s worth noting that in these relatively cool temperatures, the C6 proved able to recover a good level of performance even beyond the first timed lap.

"In fact, the topic of temperatures is definitely a factor to take into account when evaluating today, looking ahead to the race. It should be warmer and sunnier on Sunday and the track could be as much as ten degrees hotter than it was this afternoon, as the race gets underway at 14.00 while the second free practice started at 17.00.

"We saw teams adopt a different approach to tyre use compared to what is normally the case on Fridays. Some teams used two sets of Medium and two of Soft, while others have already used one set of Hard, although the majority opted to use one set of C5 and three of C6."

Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton was heard complaining about graining during his long run. Berra stated that he expects the track conditions to improve for the rest of the weekend which should help drivers manage their tyres on longer runs.

"The level of graining was quite high today, but the situation should improve, even if it is hard to say if this phenomenon will disappear completely in the race. In terms of degradation, we saw that the Medium and Hard performed rather well, but as mentioned previously, the higher temperatures could mix things up a bit.

"As for strategy, the fact that nine of the ten teams have kept two sets of Hard is a clear indication that this will be the main tyre for the race, with the Soft unlikely to put in an appearance. It will be interesting to see how the teams will tackle qualifying, both in terms of using the Medium and managing the Softs, as there is still a free practice session tomorrow.

"Simulations indicate that a two-stop is the quickest strategy and for the moment, there is no indication that this could change, but we will know more tomorrow afternoon.”