Mercedes continued their strong form during Friday practice for the 2026 F1 Italian GP. For FP1, George Russell came in third with championship leader Kimi Antonelli in 5th. In the second session they moved up, with Russell topping the timesheets and Antonelli in 3rd.
Good feelings throughout the Mercedes garage
After the session Russell was understandably positive about their performance.
“It was quite a strong Friday for us; we got through lots of work and seemed to have decent pace on both the single lap and long run. We made some adjustments after FP1 that helped but we know we’ve still got more work to do overnight.”
Antonelli echoed Russell’s optimism and highlighted those long-run stints from Friday.
“It was a very different Friday compared to usual, focusing a lot more on the long run, consecutive laps. But it was a good day, we got a lot of data and now looking forward to tomorrow.”
Mercedes setting up Friday for F1 Italian GP qualifying on Saturday
This data naturally included some for qualifying, particularly toward harnessing the slipstream on Monza’s famously long straights. The Italian starts at the back on Sunday.
“We did try in FP1 some towing, I tried to give him [Russell] a tow just to take the reference for tomorrow and it looked to work quite well, so let’s see tomorrow.”
Deputy Team Principal Bradley Lord expects the draft to work both ways for the team.
“We’ll have a look at that and see what can make most sense in terms of how he can put a good lap in in Q3, but also then work as a team to maximise George’s chances as well. I think they’re both pretty clear that just as we saw really good team-mate cooperation in Zandvoort, then no reason to expect anything different this weekend in Monza.”
A Russell resurgence at Monza?
59 points behind his teammate, Russell is looking to keep in the championship hunt as the season progresses. With his first podium since Silverstone at the previous round, Lord has been encouraged by what he’s seen lately from Russell.
“Confidence is really important for every athlete and I think he built that in Zandvoort. He’s come out today, been really strong, topped FP2, ticked all the boxes in terms of the programme. Quick on a single lap, strong on the long run. Those are great building blocks and now we’ve got to keep the good work going and translate that into strong qualifying and then hopefully an even stronger race.”
