However, with hours before qualifying, Lawson was heard telling his race engineer he had picked up damage during the final laps.<\/p>\n
At the front of the grid, Mercedes\u2019 George Russell led from lights out to take victory, in a bid to his title hopes from teammate Kimi Antonelli – who finished third.<\/p>\n
The two Mercedes cars came wheel to wheel in the middle stages of the race, and even saw team boss Toto Wolff intervene to tell Antonelli to concentrate on driving.<\/p>\n
World champion Lando Norris continued his resurgence after a slow start to the season to come home in second, after winning the sprint race in Miami <\/a>earlier this month.<\/p>\n As a show of how competitive Racing Bulls should be <\/a>in Canada, Lawson\u2019s teammate Arvid Lindblad came home eighth to claim the final point.<\/p>\n Qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix begins at 8am on Sunday.<\/p>\n Having been condemned to starting last<\/a>, Lawson was upgraded to 17th before lights out, as five drivers made changes to their cars and began from pit lane.<\/p>\n Needing to make up a further nine places over the 23 laps if he was to secure points, Lawson was able to climb to 16th by the end of the first lap, as Audi\u2019s Gabriel Bortleto fell five places down the grid.<\/p>\n Behind the underperforming Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso, Lawson\u2019s pace advantage told on lap four as the Kiwi gained another place on the back straight into turn 16, as Lindblad climbed into the points ahead of him.<\/p>\n An engine failure for Red Bull\u2019s Isack Hadjar had Lawson climb to 14th, but sat more than two seconds behind the Audi of Nico Hulkenberg ahead of him.<\/p>\n By lap 10, Lawson had cut that gap to less than one second, and set himself up for a chance to use overtake mode, only for Hulkenberg to keep the place by leaving the track at turn 16 when he was under pressure.<\/p>\n Hulkenberg could only hold on for so long before Lawson finally hunted him down on lap 14, and moved to 13th with his fifth on-track pass. <\/p>\n