George Russell reflects on Lewis Hamilton duel: “When you're racing one of the greats..”

George Russell says he knew he could “trust” Lewis Hamilton when the pair went wheel-to-wheel in the closing laps of F1 Canadian Grand Prix.

Despite running ahead of his experienced teammate for the majority of Sunday’s race, Russell dropped behind Hamilton after the former attempted to overtake McLaren’s Oscar Piastri into the final chicane.

Russell was forced to take to the run-off at the chicane, and with it being wet, lost crucial ground.

However, Russell’s superior pace - and tyre advantage - meant he was able to get past Hamilton with a ballsy move into the chicane.

Hamilton stayed in the middle of the track meaning Russell was forced to go to the right, off the racing line which was still damp.

Russell had a minor moment into the corner due to the dampness of the track but maintained the position to score his and Mercedes’ first podium of the year.

Reflecting on his battle with the seven-time world champion, Russell said in the post-race FIA press conference: “And always with Lewis, it's really hard and fair.

“When you're racing with one of the greats, you know that you can trust them. And that was really great to see at the end.”

It was easily Mercedes’ strongest weekend of the year so far as Russell clinched his second career pole position.

Russell felt without a number of unforced errors, the win was potentially on the table at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

“I think if you told us ahead of this weekend, pole position and P3, we may not have believed you, to be honest,” he added. “But as Max said, it was such a tricky race out there for everybody.

“You put a millimetre wide and you're off. I think for me, it was just one too many mistakes at key moments that cost us a shot of fighting with these two towards the end of the race.

“I was pushing to pit because I thought the new Medium would have been really competitive at the end. I need to look at it because to be honest, in hindsight, I think we had really great pace. Were you two on the medium? Yeah, those guys were on the Medium and me being on the Hard, I think we'd have probably been in a really strong position to fight, but, There's a lot of changes you have made if you know how things plan out retrospectively, but I'm happy with the progress we've made.

“Really proud of the team because we've been pushing these upgrades through and it's really paying dividends.”