Mercedes arrived at Monza with a quick car and appeared to be in contention for pole position. While the McLaren drivers successfully locked out the front row, George Russell managed to pip Charles Leclerc by a margin of 0.021 seconds in a closely-contested Italian Grand Prix qualifying session.
Set to start from third on the grid tomorrow, Russell seemed to be content with the lap time of 1:19.440 in his final Q3 run, despite missing out on the front row by 0.004 seconds. After 18-year-old Mercedes junior Kimi Antonelli made his F1 debut and ran in place of Russell in FP1, his high-speed crash during the session resulted in the Brit losing a huge chunk of time in FP2 as well, since repair works took longer than expected.
In the post-qualifying media session, Russell was asked what his expectations were going into the weekend and whether the car was performing as they had anticipated. He admitted that his expectations weren’t high going into qualifying after missing crucial practice time on Friday. He wrestled the car quite a bit during the first two segments of qualifying but managed to extract decent lap times in Q3.
“Yeah, it was a very up and down weekend, obviously. Missed a lot yesterday, which put me really on the back foot and had to make a lot of changes from FP3 into qualifying because that was really my first proper session out on track. And Q1 and Q2 was really, really messy.
“I wasn’t confident, didn’t feel good in the car and just sort of scraped through the session. And then suddenly I managed to get it in the sweet spot for Q3. Both my laps, I think I was third or fourth, and obviously ended up third. So pretty pleased with that result and it’s kind of exciting to see how close it is with everyone.”
After confirming that his feeling inside the car has improved, Russell talked about how the data from their subpar performance at Zandvoort was essential to optimising the car’s setup this weekend. As such, they are hopeful about keeping up with the McLarens and the Ferraris tomorrow.
“Yeah, it feels good around here. Last week, I think we recognise where we went wrong with the setup and you know in this sport it runs away from you really, really quickly if you’re just on the wrong side of that sweet spot and that’s absolutely what we found in Zandvoort.
“As painful as it is, it’s important sometimes to have those disappointing weekends. There’s no guarantees for tomorrow. You know, we weren’t a million miles away in qualifying in Zandvoort, but I am confident we’ll be more in the mix tomorrow and try and keep up with these guys.”
Given his lack of mileage during the long-run simulations yesterday, Russell confessed that he is unsure where he stands in terms of race pace in comparison to the drivers starting ahead. Nonetheless, he seemed optimistic about the car’s potential and stated that he would rely on his instincts and adaptability to bring home a good result.
“I mean, I don’t really know what to expect because I’ve just not really done the laps, to be honest. So I’ll just have to trust my instincts and go from there really, and adapt on the fly. So as I said, I’m really, really pleased to be lining up P3 after the day we’ve had, and the car definitely seems to have potential.”
The two-time race winner, however, expressed caution that it would be extremely tough to secure a victory if the McLarens manage to hold on to their positions at the start tomorrow. At the same time, he commended the Woking-based team on their hard work and acknowledged that they have been the team to beat for the better part of the season now.
“If they make a start like last week, then we’ve got a chance, I think. But if they have a good start, then I think it’ll be very difficult.
“You know, McLaren have done an incredible job these recent races, they are the team to beat. Seemingly, everywhere we go, they’ve been the quickest, and that’s probably been the case since… as long as I can remember, really. I’ve got a short memory, but it seems like a long time.”
