George Russell has expressed no regret around his intentional penalty after an illegal pass on Alex Albon, while criticising the “flawed” two-stop rule implemented for the F1 Monaco GP.
After cutting a chicane to pass the Williams driver, Russell refused to give the position back, instead choosing to take a drive-through penalty issued by the FIA.
Starting in 15th after a difficult qualifying session on Saturday, the British driver had a big hill to climb during Sunday’s race. And while he made up positions to eventually finish 11th, Russell fell victim to strategic team games played by the drivers in front of him to take advantage of the two-stop mandate.
Russell: Nothing Mercedes could do after poor F1 Monaco GP qualifying
For much of his race, Russell was following closely behind the Williams of Carlos Sainz, who was creating a gap between teammate Albon ahead and the cars behind to optimise pit stops – the same plan as that of Racing Bulls.
Russell explained that Mercedes had planned the same strategy, but with both drivers starting the grid in sub-optimal positions, it was going to be very difficult to pull off:
“We had planned Kimi [Antonelli] and I to basically do the same strategy as what [Racing Bulls] and Williams implemented with the two drivers,” he said.
“But ultimately qualifying 14th and 15th, there is nothing you can do. You pit on lap one, we’d have finished nowhere. You go long, we’d have finished nowhere.”
Russell “didn’t really care” about penalty after illegal Albon move
After the incident in which Russell left the track to overtake Albon, his radio engineer advised him to give the position back. However, Russell refused, and stated he would take whatever penalty was given to him – that turned out to be a drive-through penalty.
Russell stands firm on the belief that he made the right call, stating that he would have finished in a worse position if he hadn’t completed the overtake:
“Ironically I finished in a higher position by doing my manoeuvre with Alex than I would have done if I hadn’t. So that in itself proves the system’s pretty flawed.”
He continued: “I was a little bit surprised [by the penalty], but I’ve got to be honest, I didn’t really care because I was out of the points.”
His teammate Kimi Antonelli pulled a similar move later on and subsequently gave the position back to Albon. He finished 18th.
After a poor qualifying session, Russell expressed his desire to enjoy the iconic Circuit de Monaco during the race – a reason he used as justification for his controversial driving.
“I didn’t get the chance yesterday to enjoy Monaco,” he said, “and I just said, ‘screw it, I want to enjoy Monaco.’ I want to enjoy driving this track full gas. It’s one of the best circuits in the world. And that’s what I did. The last 25 laps was the most fun I’ve had all weekend. Pretty exhilarating. I was really pushing the limits, testing myself.
“And as I said, ironically, if I didn’t do this, I would have finished maybe 15th or 16th,” he added.
Fortunately, there’s no bad blood between Russell and Albon. When informed that Albon labelled Russell’s move as “cheeky”, the Brit joked:
“I’m having dinner with him tonight, so he’ll definitely get the bill.”
Russell: F1 Monaco GP qualifying is more exciting than the race
The new two-stop rule implemented for the 2025 F1 Monaco GP was intended to make for some added excitement. Monaco has been singled out in recent years for being one of the most boring races on the calendar. Historic narrow streets and larger F1 cars mean that overtaking is rare, and race results are often unchanged from the starting grid.
However, the new rule did little to spice up the standings, and the cars completed the race in a similar procession to recent years.
Russell did not hesitate to criticise the FIA’s attempt at shaking up the race:
“We definitely need to have a real think about what the solution is here in Monaco. I appreciate trying something this year with the two-stop. Clearly it did not work at all,” he said.
“For all of the drivers, qualifying is the most exhilarating moment of the weekend. Do we accept that there should be no race? It’s a qualifying race. You do one on Saturday, one on Sunday. The guy who qualifies pole gets some points and gets a little trophy. And the one on Sunday gets some more points.”
He continued: “Because that’s what we love most. I think that’s what you guys enjoy watching the most. And 99% of the other people in Monaco are here sipping champagne on a yacht. So they don’t really care.”
Russell: F1 Monaco GP was “too easy” for teams to take advantage of
Russell went on to criticise how simple it was for teams to take advantage of the two-stop rule by using both drivers to create a gap in the field:
“It’s too easy. [Liam] Lawson took a 40-second gap to help [Isack] Hadjar. And that was comfortable of him. And then Sainz did another 40 seconds. Driving four seconds off the pace here is dead easy,” he said.
“Our strategist said anything less than three seconds pace advantage is a 0% chance of an overtake. And you need four and a half seconds for a 50% chance of an overtake. So you effectively can put an F2 car out there and they’ve got a chance of holding up an F1 car.
“I don’t know what the solution is. We were lucky in 2022 and 2023 that the wet races offered some excitement. Do they wet the tracks? I don’t know.”
He asserted that Mercedes did have the same plan as the other teams to use their two drivers to optimise pit stops, but with every other team doing the same thing, it proved extremely difficult to pull off:
“It didn’t work because it was too easy for drivers’ teams to work together to create the pit-stop gap, invert the cars. The next driver creates the pit-stop gap and gives their teammate the free stop.
“So as I said, we had planned that ourselves with Kimi and I. Because that was our only hope of getting some points. And if everyone was driving flat-out as you do at any other race and we implemented our strategy, we both would have finished in the points. But VCARB did it, Williams did it. And then, what can you do?”
