George Russell has played down his and Mercedes’ chances of being in the mix for victory at the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix, despite topping FP2.
The Brit went quickest in the second free practice session, with a 1:12.123s, as team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli was third, in which the top seven was covered by Mercedes-powered cars.
The W16 has been competitive in cooler conditions, and with the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve reaching around 20 degrees on Friday, the more modest temperature may have helped the car reach fuller potential.
Russell stated after the session that whilst he was pleased with topping the timesheets, there must be a sense of realism come qualifying.
“It might be my first time top of the leaderboard the whole year!” he said. “10 races in… no, obviously we’ve had a very positive day.
“We had higher expectations coming into this weekend because of the cooler conditions. The track’s quite smooth so the tyres naturally run quite cold and we know our weakness, which is when it’s hot, we struggle and when it’s cold, the tyres run cold, we’re pretty competitive.
“That was definitely validation today. Nevertheless, we’ll try to maximise this weekend. I think my lap was really strong today, probably optimised. There was nothing more in the tank there.
“We had it all on the table – full beans, power and all the rest so let’s see what tomorrow brings. You’ve got to be a little bit realistic. We’ll see tomorrow, it’ll be interesting.
“Clearly, a number of teams are thinking about this medium tyre as well so come qualifying, do you go on the soft? Do you go on the medium? That’s one of the challenges so far when we’ve had this C6 compound.”
Antonelli hopeful to ‘put on a fight’ come raceday
Antonelli enters this weekend after a triple-header in Europe that saw him score no points, truncating what has been an impressive start to his F1 career.
However, a return to North America – the scene of his last points finish, in Miami – looks to have been the tonic the young Italian needed, and after practice, he seemed keen to return to his burgeoning form.
“It was a good day, a decent day to be honest,” Antonelli said. “This track is pretty fun, it’s not easy but so far I’ve been enjoying it quite a lot. I’m pretty happy because I’m understanding more and more the C6, which was the main point for me after the two difficult weekends in Imola and Monaco.
“The progress has been there – obviously there’s still quite a bit of work to do but a single lap felt pretty okay, and then the long run felt good as well. We’ll try to keep pushing in order to improve for tomorrow.
“The car felt strong today and the pace was definitely there. [The conditions] help everybody a bit, but for us the car is definitely very connected. I’ll do my best to try and be up there and to put on a fight – that’s definitely the goal. We’ll see, but I’m really trying to build the right confidence in order to be ready for qualifying.”
READ MORE – George Russell edges Lando Norris to top FP2 at F1 Canadian GP
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