Why Mercedes have performed well in Canada

The Briton let a victory slip through his fingers after taking pole in Canada last year and said he wanted to make amends for that.

"Last year was a poor race for me," he said, "and I felt it could've gone differently. So obviously I'll be doing my best to make up for last year's losses.

"But it's totally different this year. We don't know how the race is going to pan out because the hard tyre is the one that we're all going to use at some point in the race, and no one knows if that would do the distance to give you a one-stop or not. So, there's that curveball in there."

Mercedes' improved performance is down to the combination of relatively cool temperatures at just over 20C and a low-abrasion track that enables their car to keep its tyre temperatures down.

But Russell said he was wary of how the car might perform in Sunday's race.

"We had good race pace on Friday, but it depends on the temperature," he said. "In practice, it was 5C cooler than it was today, and the car was easily in its sweet spot.

"It can easily go the other way tomorrow in the race. If the sun comes out - it's a two o'clock race, it was a four o'clock qualifying today - that makes quite a bit of difference. So, it's not going to be an easy race."