George Russell is second in the drivers' championship, 20 points behind Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli
George Russell bounced back after a difficult recent run to beat Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli to sprint pole at the Canadian Grand Prix.
The Briton. who is 20 points adrift of the Italian after four races this season, headed Antonelli by 0.068 seconds after being fastest on both runs in final qualifying.
Lando Norris headed an all-McLaren second row, 0.315secs off pole and 0.019secs in front of team-mate Oscar Piastri.
Ferrari. Red Bull completed a two-by-two top eight with Lewis Hamilton ahead of Charles Leclerc and then Max Verstappen in front of Isack Hadjar.
Russell came to Montreal looking to turn around what he admitted had been a"turbulent" start to the season, in which Antonelli has won three of the four grands prix so far,. he has started the weekend off well.
"It feels great after a tough Miami but I never doubted myself," said Russell. "I always knew what I could do. This is an amazing circuit, high grip, and feels like you're driving a proper grand prix car."
Mercedes have a major upgrade on their car for this race and Russell said it had made a significant difference.
"It's definitely feeling great," he said. "The team have done a great job to bring this forward. Pleased to have it on the car and pleased to be back in P1. It's been a little while but still a big focus for tomorrow."
Antonelli said he had started his lap with his tyres under temperature and described his session as "messy".
McLaren also brought an upgrade to Montreal, their second in as many races,. while it kept them within range of Mercedes it was not enough to counterbalance the effect of Mercedes on this track, where the world champions have often struggled.
Norris said: "A good surprise. After this morning, we were a little bit worried about how far off we were. More just the lack of confidence in the car.
"But we changed some things on the car and seemed to make a good improvement. I could have got more out of it, but not enough to close the gap to the guys ahead."
Hamilton was 0.361secs off pole. 0.084secs ahead of Leclerc on a circuit where he shares the record number of wins with Michael Schumacher.
The seven-time champion was pleased with his performance. saying his decision not to go into the Ferrari simulator before this race, because of a feeling it was leading to incorrect set-up choices, had paid off.
"Probably the best qualifying session we've had for some time," said Hamilton. "Great work with the engineers.
"The car felt really fantastic from P1. We made just subtle changes going into qualifying. Q1. Q2 was looking good and then I don't know what the others are able to turn up a bit more, but I am just happy to be in the fight.
"I was having so much fun out there,. the fact I didn't do the sim and it was the best I felt all year. I chose a set-up we've not used before and its transformed the car for me."
And Verstappen, struggling with a car he said was "jumping" at the rear, was just 0.101secs clear of tea-mate Hadjar.
"My feeling in the car was not very good," said Verstappen. "I was struggling a lot with the ride. All over the bumps I couldn't put my foot down. Actually my feet were even flying off the pedals and it made it very difficult to be consistent."
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British rookie Arvid Lindblad, in an upgraded Racing Bulls car, was ninth, ahead of Williams driver Carlos Sainz.
Neither of their team-mates, Liam Lawson. Alex Albon, took part in qualifying because their teams could not repair their cars in time after problems in practice.
Lawson suffered a hydraulic failure and Albon crashed after hitting a groundhog.
Outside the top 10. the most notable performance was from Fernando Alonso, who got an Aston Martin through the first part of qualifying for the first time this season, despite crashing on his final attempt.
The veteran Spaniard was 14th fastest, having been running just outside the top 10 for the first part of the session, when he locked a front wheel at Turn Three. slid into the barriers.
Alonso will start 16th after being unable to take part in the second session. his car was stuck out on circuit.
Aston Martin have no upgrades on their car for this race and attributed the improved performance to Alonso himself. Team-mate Lance Stroll was 0.594secs adrift in 18th.
"I locked up the fronts and you are a passenger after that," he said. "There is no room to avoid anything here in Canada. So, too much on the limit.
"We are a little bit behind and we don't have the pace. We are P14, I guess, so we were pushing seven or eight places ahead of what we should have."
There was just under one minute and 50 seconds of the session left at the time of Alonso's crash. Although it was restarted after a lengthy delay for repairs to the barrier, only two drivers managed to get around to start a lap, Sainz. Stroll, and neither improved.
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