"I'll take it!" - Verstappen relieved to secure front row spot

Max Verstappen might have lost out to George Russell in the battle over pole position for the Canadian Grand Prix with an identical time to the Mercedes, but he was still happy to be lining up in P2 tomorrow.

After struggling in Monaco, Verstappen found himself on the backfoot again this weekend with a disrupted start to his weekend when an ERS issue left him sidelined in FP2 after just four laps.

"I felt good in Monaco but it was not our track, it was not happening for us," he admitted. "This weekend, again, we didn't have a great build up.

"We always knew this track was going to be a bit more tricky than others and it seems that a lot of the teams are catching up," he said. "Considering everything we definitely maximised the result, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow.”

he had looked back on form on Saturday but soon found he faced stiff competition from Mercedes and their new, improved front wing, with Lewis Hamilton faster than Verstappen in final practice.

• Read also: Russell wins Montreal pole in dead heat with Verstappen

And when it came to qualifying, it was Russell who had the upper hand, eventually setting a time of 1:12.000s in Q3 that Verstappen was eventually able to match, but crucially not beat in the changeable conditions.

As Russell set the time first, he gets to keep pole position while Verstappen will start tomorrow's race alongside him on the grid, with conditions likely to be just as mixed as they were today.

"Overall we had a good qualifying," Verstappen told the media in parc ferme after the end of the fiercely contested qualifying session at Montreal's Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve.

"We always knew this track was going to be a bit more tricky than others and it seems that a lot of the teams are catching up. It was about managing the tyres with the graining.

"The whole weekend has been a bit tricky for us," he admitted. "But if you look at the pace, we did well and improved nicely every run. To be P2, I'll take it. Going into qualifying, I would have definitely have taken that.

"That it was that close at the end makes it really exciting for tomorrow as well," he added. "We tried to do the best we can and just need to make sure we have a cleaner weekend as we have been slightly on the back foot.

"It will be quite an interesting race with the tyres, how they are going to fare, the weather as well, which keeps on coming in and out, with the rain," he commented. "Hopefully it will be very exciting."

Verstappen's best chance of winning will be to take the lead from Russell going into the first corner, but whether he'll be able to do that this weekend remains to be seen.

"I don't know, we'll think about it. I'm not stressed about it," he said, unwilling to be drawn on whether he would attack straight away or play the long game and wait until later in the race.

"I think it will come down to the weather and tyre behaviour. The rain will make it more interesting, especially with the tarmac making it more slippery, the chicanes and the close walls.

Neither Russell not Verstappen will have their respective team mates on hand to help them at the start, with Hamilton starting from P7 and Verstappen's team mate Sergio Perez suffering another nightmare qualifying leaving him in P16.

It means that both drivers will have to be alert to an early challenge form the second row where McLaren pair Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will be waiting for any opportunity to gain an advantage into the first corner.

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