Good Haul of Points for Mercedes-AMG in Montreal: Lewis P3, George P4
Lewis took his second podium of the season finishing in third place, just ahead of George who took P4 to complete a solid team effort under blue skies in Montreal.
George made swift progress early on to move up from P8 to P5 and slot in behind Lewis who had held P4, fortunate to have avoided damage after contact with MAG on the opening lap.
A VSC on lap 9 presented opportunity: Lewis ran opposite to ALO in front and boxed for fresh rubber, taking advantage of the lessened time penalty.
A second VSC on lap 20 provided George his own opportunity of a cheap stop and he re-joined once again behind Lewis in P5 but with a fresh set of Hard tyres.
Lewis and SAI, then eventually George, pulled past ALO as the two Silver Arrows crossed the half-way stage of the race in P3 and P4.
Lewis boxed on lap 44, followed by George a lap later. A safety car soon after bunched the field together for a 15-lap run to the finish, with George keeping a cautious eye on a surging LEC who had started the race from P19 and now sat in P7.
The Mercedes pair showed impressive pace to retain position and complete a second-row finish for the second consecutive weekend.
Lewis Hamilton
It’s quite overwhelming honestly, to get this third place. It’s been such a battle this year with the car as a Team, but we continue to stay vigilant, focussed and never giving up. That’s something I’m so proud of and I remain inspired by my crew so thank you, to everyone who’s here in Montreal and back at the factory. The guys are the front are a little bit quick for us at the moment, I was giving it everything, but we’re getting closer. We’ve just got to keep pushing and keep pushing and hopefully we’ll be in the fight with these guys. I could just about see them in the end thanks to the Safety Car! Honestly, our pace was quite good, particularly in the second phase of the stint. We did a lot of work, back in the simulator but also here to get the set up right. So honestly, I’m ecstatic. I think, as I said, I didn’t expect this coming into the weekend. This is my second podium of the year, and it was really special. Especially where I got my first Grand Prix win! I love it here in Montreal so big thank you to all the Canadians!
George Russell
I had total confidence we’d have been able to carve our way past the Haases and the Alpines. We were certainly concerned that Leclerc and Checo would be able to come through and we were fortunate enough to keep them behind us. Ultimately our race pace was closer to Ferrari and Red Bull than we’ve seen all season, but we’ve had performance issues and they haven’t. Everything is easier in hindsight and I probably would have liked to have pitted under the first VSC but at the end of the day, I don’t think it would have changed my finishing result. The pace was really strong in the first stint, on the second stint it was strong, and the final stint after the restart, I don’t know why but I just couldn’t get my tyres working. So that was a bit of a shame, to drop back slightly and not be in the fight. Nevertheless, P4, good points for the Team and it’s great to be back on the podium as Mercedes.
Toto Wolff
Montreal has always been a happy place for Lewis and today he was really good, with a car that was a handful so we can be quietly satisfied. The race pace was good, particularly when the tyres started to degrade – Max and Carlos actually came towards us and that was nice to see. After a bold gamble yesterday which left him further down the grid, George made smart overtakes at the start and then showed good pace to bring the result home behind Lewis. The past two weekends have showed the collective spirit of the team to extract a solid haul of points, even if we lack the pace to be challenging the guys at the front.
Andrew Shovlin
It’s a good result for the team to come away with another third and fourth place and encouraging that the underlying pace looked a better than in Baku.Both drivers had a good race. Lewis had a very solid drive to the podium; we didn’t quite have the pace of Max or Carlos but most of the time, it felt that we were just missing two or three tenths which will spur us all on to work to close that gap. George also surprised us with his ability to pick cars off in the first stint.We’d opted for a big wing on his car going into qualifying to see what we could do in the wet conditions yesterday but expected it to be a liability in the race. However, he was able to use it to attack into the corners and made good progress through the field back to fourth.It’s really hard to know what to expect coming to each track with this car but we certainly maximised the opportunity today and we’ve learnt a bit more about the car. The team in Brackley and Brixworth will continue to push hard, there’s lots to improve on the car but that can be translated into potential and the race today has given us more encouragement to keep pushing to close that gap.