George Russell has revealed that Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s huge crash in practice at Formula 1’s Italian Grand Prix has left Mercedes with no more spare upgrade parts.
Antonelli, who has been announced as Russell’s new team-mate in 2025, embarked upon his F1 weekend debut at Monza in FP1 in the Briton’s W15 when he shunted.
However, Antonelli was on the ragged edge and poised to improve his best time on his second timed run when he lost the rear and went into the barrier at Parabolica.
The Italian’s incident proved to be a hindrance to Russell’s weekend endeavours as he was made to sit out the nascent exchanges in FP2 as the team repaired the car.
But while he appeared to be lagging behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton across the weekend, Russell delivered the lap when it mattered to seize third place on the grid.
Russell has admitted that winding up behind the McLaren duo came as a surprise to him as he had struggled to get his car into the groove right up until the last stage.
“Yeah, it was a very up-and-down weekend, obviously,” Russell said.
“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 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.
“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.”
Russell has divulged that Antonelli’s crash has meant Mercedes has no more updated parts, running the risk that either driver might have to revert to old components.
“I mean, obviously we’ve lost quite a few parts,” Russell disclosed.
“Fingers crossed Lewis and I don’t do any further damage, otherwise we’ll have to revert back to some of the old parts, unless we can get some new pieces made in the interim.
“It’s not the end of the world as long as we both don’t do any further damage. As it stands, we don’t have any spares of our upgraded stuff.”
The two-time F1 race winner has also conceded that the limited track time he has garnered compared to others will see him head into the race with a disadvantage.
“I don’t really know what to expect because I’ve just not really done the laps, to be honest,” he professed.
“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.”
But asked whether he can contemplate beating both McLaren drivers to the win, Russell is hedging his bets on Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri stuttering at the start.
“If they make a start like last week [at Zandvoort], then we’ve got a chance, I think,” he assessed. “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. I’ve got a short memory, but it seems like a long time.”
Discussion about this post