George Russell calls Monaco GP Friday “our slowest” - but “still all to play for”

George Russell admitted Mercedes’ performance in Friday practice at the F1 Monaco Grand Prix was their slowest of the 2025 season so far.

Russell was 12th-fastest in the final FP2 classification, over 0.7s off the pace set by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli didn’t fare much better, setting the ninth-fastest time, 0.6s off the best time of the session.

Mercedes had high hopes going into this weekend due to their qualifying form.

In the hands of Russell, Mercedes have consistently qualified well this year.

Russell hasn’t failed to out-qualify outside the top five at any race in 2025.

However, based on Friday, Mercedes will need a significant overnight improvement to challenge McLaren and Ferrari.

Reflecting on Friday in the principality, Russell said: “It’s always intense around Monaco. I mean, the track isn’t quite big enough for 20 F1 cars. As our mate

Yuki [Tsunoda] says, traffic paradise around the track and it’s kind of how it was today.

“It’s always amazing driving around here. We weren’t very quick today but tomorrow is usually the main day but this weekend with the mandated two-stop it will be interesting.

“You’ve seen some teams already throw away the hard tyre which was a bit of a surprise to us so that sort of shows what they’re looking likely to do a different plan than what we were expecting. It will be interesting.”

Russell hopes for 2024-like turnaround

Russell was in a similar position last year.

The Mercedes driver was nine-tenths off Leclerc in FP2 at the 2024 Monaco GP.

Come qualifying, Russell was just 0.2s off pole and settled for fifth on the grid.

“In terms of pure performance it’s probably been our slowest Friday,” Russell added. “To be honest, we had a bad Friday here last year and we were only a tenth off pole in the end. Still all to play for and I am still pretty excited to see how Sunday will plan out.

“Even if we’re not in the top five, top three tomorrow, I still think there maybe a bit of a chance on Sunday, especially first time being as it is this year. We will keep our hopes alive.”

Russell currently sits fourth in the 2025 F1 drivers’ standings on 99 points, 47 points off Oscar Piastri.