Williams is hoping to fight with Ferrari on merit during Formula 1’s Belgian Grand Prix after George Russell nearly split Cha🦄rles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel in qualifying.

Russell finished just behind both Ferrari’s as he made it through to Q2 for the fifth time in th🎃e 2020 season and ended up just 0.207s behind Vet🤪tel’s SF1000 in 15th place.

The result left Dave Robson, the team’🎃s head of vehicle performance, left hopeful that Williams could take the fight to Ferrari during Sunday’s race in Belgiu💛m.

"Certainly coming here we definitely didn'💎t expect to be🍸 fighting with Ferrari," Robson said.

"It did look like they wer🍎e struggling a bit yesterday, but even so I think yes we were a bit surprised.

"They didn't look particularly special on high fuel on Friday, so hopefully we🐓 can stay with them and battle with them.

"[I] don't think thei🐻r end of straight speed is particularly brilliant either - a bit like ours♔. We'll definitely be trying."

Russell was equally surprised to be able to as close as he did to the Ferraris, labelling qualifying at Spa-Francorchamps as one of Williams’ bes♚t of the season 🐻having initially expected to struggle at the circuit with his “draggy” FW43.

“They’ve been strugไgling all weekend and battling with them for spots on the grid was 🧸very unexpected,” Russell explained.

“Even for us to get into Q2, we knew on paper this is a circuit tha🌸t doesn’t suit the characteriℱstics of our car, it felt absolutely great and I was really pleased to get through to Q2.

“I have no idea [where the pace came from] to be honest. Eve🌠n in FP3 I was 18th-slowest and struggling with the car, but it all just got hooked-up in qualifying.

“And it was exhilarating, probably one of the best qualifyings we’ve had all year to put it into perspective. And we’♊ve had some good ones so far.

“You can’t see but I’m grinning under this mask.”