2024 Canadian GP

George led the race for a long time ahead of Verstappen and was able to pull away from the Red Bull in the first third of the race. Subsequently, Lando Norris (McLaren) got closer and closer to Verstappen and overtook him. Shortly afterwards, Norris also passed George, who drove straight on in the final chicane and also had to let Verstappen go. This left him in P3 behind the two. At this point, Lewis was still stuck behind Alonso in P6.

After 25 laps, Logan Sargeant (Williams) crashed and race control deployed the safety car. With the exception of Norris, all the drivers from the leading group came into the pits to change tyres and pick up fresh Intermediates. George rejoined in P3, Lewis jumped Alonso and was in P5.

At the halfway point of the race, the top five were within six seconds of each other. Verstappen led ahead of George, Norris, Piastri and Lewis. After 44 laps, Lewis came into the pits for the second time and changed to the Medium tyres. George came in a little later and had the Hard tyre compound fitted.

This was followed by exciting duels between George and Norris, in which the positions changed several times. Just 20 laps before the end of the race, Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) and Alexander Albon (Williams) touched, prompting the next safety car deployment. George and Lewis took this opportunity to have fresh tyres fitted. George changed from Hard to Medium, Lewis from Medium to Hard, as he didn't have a new set of Medium tyres left. The top 3 stayed out.

George Russell

I’m disappointed with myself today. I made too many errors that set us back and cost us a chance of victory. I was really pushing the limits out there. That said, it feels great to be disappointed with P3. We’ve made small steps over the past few races and to come to Canada, get pole position and a podium is really encouraging. We’ve been one of the fastest cars on track all weekend, so we’ve definitely made progress. There are many positives to take away from here.

The conditions were incredibly challenging out there. Put a wheel even one millimetre off line and you would be in trouble. Unfortunately, the errors I made came with consequences as it let other cars past. Other drivers made errors too, but they didn’t come at the same cost. We were still able to battle back to the podium though with the pace we had. We will continue to work hard, develop the car, and I’m looking forward to heading to Barcelona.

Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO

It has been an encouraging weekend. We have taken the right steps recently and brought updates that are working well. Directionally, we seem to be adding performance every Grand Prix. Everyone at Brackley and Brixworth continues to work incredibly hard and it’s great to see their efforts rewarded with our first podium of the year. I hope that we can continue this positive trajectory. Looking ahead to Barcelona, it’s a circuit that really tests a car. We are excited to go there and truly understand where we are performance wise.

Today’s race was a challenging one. When you finish P3 and P4, given where we have finished in recent races, then of course it is positive. Both drivers know that we could have achieved more though. We certainly could have taken one or two more positions and then maybe have fought for victory. It is a little bittersweet therefore but ultimately, if you had said to us before the weekend that we would be third and fourth, then we would have taken it.