Pirelli explains how Russell repeated Hamilton's achievement from the 2020 Portuguese Grand Prix
With Mercedes driver George Russell having set his pole position lap on the yellow-banded medium tyres, Pirelli's motorsport director Mario Isola highlighted the fact that it took five years for a driver to secure the first starting position on a compound other than the softest rubber.
Although George Russell did not always look particularly quick on Pirelli's red-walled C6 tyres over the weekend, he opted for mediums for his final lap in Q3. The Briton managed a dream last lap to grab his first pole of the season.
The Mercedes driver nailed every single corner to beat reigning champion Max Verstappen by a tenth and a half, repeating his result from last season when he also secured pole position in Montreal.
As for the tyres, drivers mainly used the soft and the medium tyres on Saturday. During the final practice, the Mercedes, Aston Martin and Racing Bulls pairings scrubbed-in one or more sets of Hards.
In qualifying, the Medium compound was used more extensively than usual, with eight drivers (Max Verstappen, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, George Russell, Lance Stroll, Fernando Alonso, Franco Colapinto, Pierre Gasly and Alexander Albon) running one or more sets of C5 at the expense of the more usual use of the softest compound available.
Reflecting on the qualifying session, Pirelli's motorsport director Mario Isola stressed that Lewis Hamilton was the last driver to have secure pole position on other than the actual softest compound.
“An extremely exciting qualifying session, which is very much the norm at the moment in Formula 1: with 27 seconds remaining in Q3, there were four changes of pole-sitter!
"It is very rare to see a driver set the pole time on the Medium in a dry session – the last time dates back to the 2020 Portuguese Grand Prix courtesy of Lewis Hamilton - but today we had four drivers set their best times in Q3 on the C5, and indeed, this scenario became every more likely as the weekend progressed.
"It explains why, this morning, many drivers worked exclusively with the Soft, either to understand how to extract the most from it or indeed to save new Mediums for the grid deciding session.
"Since it first appeared in Imola, we have seen that the difference in performance between the C6 and the C5 is quite small, let’s say of the order of a tenth to a tenth and a half, and that the C6 delivers peak performance in a narrower operating window.
"Here in Montreal, several drivers preferred to rely on the C5 that they know well, rather than venture into chasing that extra bit of performance the C6 might offer, feeling more comfortable with a compound that gave them more confidence when it comes to tackling a tricky track like this one with its kerbs and walls. The result was a Q3 order with four yellow circles in the tyre column alongside each driver’s best lap.
"The expansion of the 2025 compound range is also having the indirect effect of delivering a greater variety of approaches from the teams and drivers in terms of tyre usage over the weekend and that will be reflected in tomorrow’s race.
With Pirelli having brought its softest compounds to Montreal and high track temperatures expected to hit Montreal today, the Milan-based tyre supplier suggests that the two-stop strategy might turn out to be the quickest approach to complete the race distance in Canada.
"As for strategy, we think a two-stop is still the most plausible option, favouring the use of the Medium and Hard. The one-stop is theoretically possible, but unlikely to pay off, especially as overtaking is possible here.
"The C6 could be a useful choice for the start, for example for those with two new sets of Hards available, who are planning a relatively short first stint or for anyone banking on an early appearance from the Safety Car.”
