George Russell pips Kimi Antonelli to Canada F1 sprint pole as Fernando Alonso crashes out

George Russell responded with a needed bounce back to claim pole position for the Canadian Grand Prix sprint race. 

The Briton has suffered three consecutive defeats to Mercedes team-mate and championship leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli but hit back at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve to clinch a pole by a narrow margin of just 0.068 seconds. 

It was an important result for Russell to halt the recent impressive momentum of Antonelli, who is 20 points clear in the title race heading into the weekend in Montreal, where Mercedes has introduced its first major upgrade package of the season. 

Russell has claimed pole in Canada for the last two years and this marked his second sprint pole of the season. 

Reigning world champion Lando Norris claimed third, a fraction ahead of McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri.

Lewis Hamilton briefly sat second between the Mercedes duo but was ultimately shuffled down to fifth, though he did outpace Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc by almost a tenth. 

It was a difficult sprint qualifying for Red Bull as Max Verstappen scraped into SQ3 before having to settle with seventh, half a second off the pace. 

Isack Hadjar was eighth, with Arvid Lindblad and Carlos Sainz completing the top-10 for Racing Bulls and Williams respectively. 

Nico Hulkenberg once again qualified 11th after the Audi driver was narrowly pipped to a spot in the top-10. The veteran German outpaced Audi team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto, who was 12th, by less than a tenth.

Franco Colapinto put his Alpine 13th, ahead of the Haas pair of Esteban Ocon and Ollie Bearman.

Rare error from Alonso causes delays 

Fernando Alonso reached SQ2 for the first time this season despite crashing at the end of the first part of sprint qualifying.

The two-time world champion locked up and went straight into the Turn 3 barriers, causing a late red flag which prevented many others from improving with less than two minutes left on the clock.

With Alonso unable to take any further part in the session, the Aston Martin driver ended up 16th, ahead of Sergio Perez’s Cadillac and home hero Lance Stroll.

Pierre Gasly was caught out by the late restart following Alonso’s crash and took a disappointing 19th for Alpine.

Cadillac’s Valtteri Bottas was slowest of the 20 drivers who participated in sprint qualifying.

Neither Liam Lawson or Alex Albon took part in sprint qualifying after their respective issues in Friday practice.

Albon suffered extensive damage to his Williams after he unfortunately hit a groundhog and crashed into the wall at the exit of Turn 7.

Lawson only completed four laps before his Racing Bulls’ broke down with a hydraulic issue which proved to be terminal for his hopes of conducting any further running on Friday.