George Russell crossed the finish line at the end of the chaotic F1 Italian GP in the same position he lined up. After grabbing a solid P6 in Qualifying, the Mercedes driver lined up fifth as a result of Lewis Hamilton’s grid penalty. While Russell fought hard to get past Charles Leclerc for large parts of the race, the Ferrari driver refused to budge.
Despite showing flashes of promise this weekend, Mercedes were not able to be in the fight for a podium. After an initial good start, the narrow track bunched up the cars, and made it a challenge for the Briton to slide past. With Russell stuck behind Leclerc early on but ultimately falling away, and Kimi Antonelli hit with a 5-second penalty for “driving erratically”, the race was an uphill battle for the team.
Still, both drivers managed to finish in the top 10 as Russell grabbed P5 and Antonelli P9. The W16 did not appeared to possess the race pace needed to extract a better performance or a higher result.
“We were expecting to be two tenths behind Ferrari and a bit more behind everybody else so to be less than that, I was reasonably pleased. I don’t think we could have done anything more. It was a bit of a shame to lose more ground to Ferrari in the Constructors’ but, I was pretty satisfied with the race. There’s nothing more really we could have done.”
The Battle for P5
He continued on to speak on what could have been if he had been able to get past the Ferrari, stating:
“I think it was just very challenging to get by Charles [Leclerc]. They were so fast in the straights. Had I just managed to get past him, it could have been a slightly different picture. Obviously, that wasn’t the case. It was pretty scrappy opening few laps. The fifth was where the car deserved to finish today, really, so not much more to say.”
Although Mercedes hoped for a better performance, the W16 did not have the pace on the long straights. Russell opted to start the race on the medium tyres, which was his preferred option in Saturday’s Qualifying as well. After 28 laps on the C4 tyre, the Briton pit for hard tyres and had to climb his way back up from P11. From there on, the Grand Prix appeared more uneventful for Russell, as most of his chances to overtake Leclerc came at the beginning of the race.
