Extreme E: Britain's Catie Munnings wins first ever Greenland race

[Animous]

George Russell almost pulled off one of the biggest shocks in Formula 1 history when he came within a whisker of taking pole position for the Belgian Grand Prix with the uncompetitive Williams team.

Extreme E: Britain's Catie Munnings wins first ever Greenland race

Ultimately, the 23-year-old Briton was pipped by Red Bull's Max Verstappen with the final lap of the session, but to put a Williams second on the grid in such treacherous wet conditions on one of the world's most demanding tracks is a performance that will go down in history regardless.

It was the sort of lap of which legends are made, which motorsport aficionados will discuss in awed tones for years to come.

When this was put to Russell after the session, as he sat in the news conference alongside Verstappen and seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton, he said he was "quite surprised to hear that - there have been some pretty stellar qualifying performances and especially from these two guys to the left of me". But he did concede: "It was definitely a very good lap."

Belgian Grand Prix coverage on the BBC

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Full qualifying results

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To put it into some kind of context, the Williams is the eighth quickest car on the grid. The team are eighth in the constructors' championship, with 10 points, compared with the 303 of leaders Mercedes.

At the previous race, they were thrilled to collect points with team-mate Nicholas Latifi and Russell in seventh and eighth places. Russell has made it into the lower reaches of the top 10 a couple of times this season, but his average grid position is 12.9.

This was so far out of the ordinary that it was almost impossible to believe what you were seeing, or to find words to describe it.

"The car was really on it in these wet conditions," Russell said, "and there is so much that has to go right - all the little details to give the driver confidence. You have to extract the most. I could put it all on the table and absolutely go for it."

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How did he do it?

Russell's lap came as a result of an approach to qualifying by the Williams team that Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff, who manages the driver's career, described as "risky but clever".

The final session of qualifying was truncated because of the huge crash suffered by McLaren's Lando Norris, which brought out the red flags and made it clear that the conditions were too wet to continue.

When it resumed, there was little time left. Most teams decided to use it to do one flying lap, a slow lap to charge the battery, and one final flier.

Williams went a different route. They initially sent Russell out on full wet tyres to gauge the conditions, while most went immediately for the more lightly treaded intermediates. Russell pitted at the end of the lap for inters and did an out-lap, a so-called 'prep' lap and then the flier. He had one shot at it. It was all or nothing.

Williams engineering chief Dave Robson said: "We felt we could do two pushing laps or, with the track drying, go all in and aim for that one good lap at the end. We went for that, took the opportunity to do the prep lap and get the tyres in the right state and go for it. It worked out really well. It all came together nicely.

"Toto's description is probably perfectly fair. But we didn't have a huge amount to lose."

It is an approach that requires high levels of confidence from the driver, and remarkable ability.

Robson said: "His lap was extremely good. He made the most in every corner of what we were able to give him. It's hard to keep finding words to describe his performances. When he has a good session, he just gets better and better as the session goes on. He's brave but sensitive; quick, calm. Just a really good professional - brilliant lap, really."

Wolff said: "I looked at the onboards [camera footage] of all the drivers and from the beginning he is the only one who gains so much time in La Source [hairpin] because he is the only one on the apex.

"This is a factor of driving and and the right set-up and the tyre temperatures in the right window.

"He was very committed through Eau Rouge and the car looks good on the rest of the lap but it needs a driver to maximise that and exploit the full potential of the package or outperform the package. All that came together and we saw a brilliant lap from a brilliant young driver."

The result was a place on the front row, 0.321secs behind Verstappen and 0.013secs ahead of Hamilton, both of whom had produced eye-catching laps of their own, more than two seconds clear of their respective team-mates.

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