Durning wet qualifying at the 2022 Canadian GP, Lewis Hamilton came out ahead of his team mate George Russell. While Lewis has out qualified George 4 times he has finished behind his team mate in all the races bar the season opener in Bahrain. Russell has finished each of the 8 races so far in the top 5 but Russell appears to be prepared to risk more than Hamilton.

As qualifying started, the rain was pouring down and both Hamilton and Russell opted for the full wet tyre in Q1 and Q2. Russell posted quicker times in each of those sessions but when Q3 arrived there was a drying line beginning to appear on the track.

All the remaining 10 cars ran the intermediate tyres during the session but with minutes to go George Russell exchanged the following messages with his engineer

(Transcript courtesy of racefans.net)

By way of contrast Lewis flirted with the idea of slicks twice before settling on a final run on new intermediates.

Of course Lewis finished the session improving to P4 while  Russell failed to improve his time set earlier in the session on intermediates.

Russell clearly was willing to risk all for a pole position but tried too hard on his first flying lap and went off the circuit. Had the British driver used that lap to warm the tyres further and try for just one flying lap – who knows where he would have finished.

It will be fascinating to see how Hamilton fairs in the race this afternoon. His dry weather setup was woeful and Lewis described the car as “the worst car I’ve ever driven”.

In the final dry practice session Hamilton was about half a second a lap slower than Russell, so if the long pace form remains the same it won’t be long before we see an on track battle between the two Mercedes team mates.

Fernando Alonso had been risking all most of qualifying and was rewarded with a P2 starting position alongside pole sitter Max Verstappen.

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