The forecast rain stayed away throughout yesterday (June 8) in Montreal, allowing drivers to get their first meaningful dry running of the weekend in final practice into qualifying.
Ferrari had been favourite for pole after a strong Friday in mixed weather, after which Leclerc declared the Scuderia would be quick in all conditions.
Neither he nor Sainz derived any joy from the slick compounds, however, and they slumped to 11th and 12th on the grid respectively, opening the door to a resurgent Mercedes to seize the initiative.
The German marque had looked much improved this weekend following upgrades brought to the car at the previous round in Monaco, and Russell stepped up in qualifying to vie for pole.
The Briton used a set of used tyres for his first pole lap to set the bar at 1 minutes 12 seconds thanks in part to a slipstream from Thai driver Alex Albon down the back straight. With conditions cooling in the late afternoon, Russell couldn’t improve with fresh tyres on his final run, leaving him vulnerable to a late Verstappen charge.
The Dutchman was fastest of any driver in the first sector but was less convincing in the final two splits.
He exited the final corner slightly behind on the clock but was gaining on Russell all the way to the finishing line.
It came just soon enough to save the Mercedes driver, with Verstappen setting an identical time. Russell took pole for having set the time first, his second P1 qualification since last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
“It feels so good,” he said. “So much hard work back at the factory has gone into this.
“We hope this is the start of something for our season, and I think it is. I’ve missed this feeling.
“The car’s been feeling amazing. Since we brought some upgrades to Monaco we’ve sort of been in that fight now, so we’re going for it tomorrow.”
Verstappen had had a disrupted build-up to qualifying, having lost most of what little track time was available on Friday to an electrics problem in his engine, leaving the Dutchman pleased just to have been competitive.
“I think overall we still had a good qualifying,” he said. “The whole weekend has been a bit tricky for us, but P2, I’ll take it - going into qualifying I would have definitely taken it.
“I think it will be quite an interesting race with the tyres tomorrow, how they’re going to fare, and the weather as well - It keeps on coming in and out, the rain. Hopefully it will be very exciting.
“That it was that close at the end makes it really exiting for tomorrow as well.”
Lando Norris completed the top three, the McLaren driver just 0.021s shy of his pole-getting compatriot.
“I’m super happy,” he said. “When it’s so close you always think, ‘Could I have jumped in the car for that little bit more?’, but third is a good job by us, so I’m happy and excited for tomorrow.”
His teammate, Oscar Piastri, qualified 0.082 seconds further back to claim an all-McLaren front row.
Daniel Ricciardo turned in his best qualifying result since last year in Mexico City to line up fifth exactly 10 years to the day since he won his first race at the 2014 Canadian Grand Prix.
The Australian has been under pressure to turn his season around, with teammate Yuki Tsunoda being re-signed to the team earlier yesterday and 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve heavily criticising him on British television, declaring that “his image has kept him in F1 more than his actual results”.
Ricciardo replied via Sky Sports: “I won’t give them the time of day. Top five. I’ve been quick all weekend. We’re less than 0.2 seconds from pole. Suck it”.
Fernando Alonso qualified sixth ahead of Lewis Hamilton, Tsunoda, home favourite Lance Stroll and Alex Albon, who made his second consecutive Q3 appearance for Williams.
Leclerc and Sainz slumped to 11th and 12th, missing out on Q1 by 0.032 and 0.069 s respectively, albeit both were almost a full second off Q1 pace-setter Russell.
Logan Sargeant, expected to lose his Williams seat at the end of next season, made Q2 for the first time this season and qualified 13th ahead of Kevin Magnussen and Pierre Gasly.
Sergio Pérez was the shock elimination from Q1 in 16th, the second straight round he’s been knocked out in the bottom five and the third consecutive weekend he’s failed to make Q3.
The Mexican, who was announced as having signed a fresh two-year contract with Red Bull Racing during the week, was 0.966 seconds slower than teammate Verstappen, who topped Q1 on his way to the front row.
Valtteri Bottas qualified 17th ahead of Esteban Ocon, but the Frenchman will drop to last on the grid after serving a five-place penalty for crashing into teammate Gasly on the first lap of the Monaco Grand Prix two weeks ago.
The demotion promotes Nico Hülkenberg and Zhou Guanyu to 18th and 19th ahead of the Frenchman in 20th.