{"id":123569,"date":"2025-09-06T16:47:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T16:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/123569\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T16:47:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T16:47:10","slug":"george-russell-explains-tyre-mistake-in-f1-italian-gp-qualifying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/123569\/","title":{"rendered":"George Russell explains tyre mistake in F1 Italian GP qualifying"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Russell<\/a> has explained the \u201cmiscommunication\u201d that led to him not using his desired tyre choice during the final qualifying session for the Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

The Mercedes<\/a> driver used soft Pirelli rubber in Q3, but disagreed with the choice via team radio saying \u201cI wanted mediums\u201d after asking \u201cwe\u2019ve the softs on, is that right?\u201d at Monza.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Russell topped Q1 on medium tyres and Mercedes is one of the few teams to have brought multiple sets of that compound to Monza – leaving the Briton wanting to continue with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a miscommunication with me and the team,\u201d said Russell, who eventually qualified sixth but will start in fifth due to a grid drop for Lewis Hamilton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo they are not really to blame. It’s probably I’m as much to blame that I didn’t make it clear. I just thought with the lap time I showed, I just presumed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said after Q1 the medium feels great, and would you consider it for Q3? And then I said in the middle of Q2, after my first lap, I’d like to run the medium in Q3.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I said in the garage, \u2018are we sticking to the plan?\u2019 And they said \u2018yes\u2019, and I thought the plan was medium, but the plan was soft. So that’s why it was a surprise. As I said, I’m as much to blame. We should have discussed it more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"George <\/p>\n

George Russell, Mercedes<\/p>\n

Photo by: Marco Canoniero \/ LightRocket via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Russell qualified 0.365s off polesitter Max Verstappen<\/a>, but reckons his qualifying position wouldn\u2019t have been too different had he opted for mediums anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe gap was obviously pretty large in the end, but I just felt much more comfortable with the medium tyre,\u201d the 27-year-old added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn’t really do good laps in Q3. I only improved one and a half tenths from Q1 on the medium to my fastest lap in Q3.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you normally talk improvement of probably five or six tenths. And bearing in mind the lap in Q1, I’ve done two laps on the tyre. So you just look at those numbers, you would think substantially faster than what I did achieve. Anyway, P5 is probably a deserving position. We qualify for P6 and we start in P5.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is only the seventh time this year that pole has not gone to either of the championship-leading McLarens, with Lando Norris<\/a> and Oscar Piastri<\/a> respectively second and third.<\/p>\n

When asked why Mercedes wasn\u2019t able to topple McLaren<\/a> like Red Bull did, Russell replied: \u201cUltimately I think we just underperformed slightly in Q3. This is definitely a circuit that doesn’t really suit McLaren’s strength. It’s low-degradation.<\/p>\n

\"Lando <\/p>\n

Lando Norris, McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n

Photo by: Sam Bloxham \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

“You can see people doing multiple laps on the same tyre. Tomorrow will be an easy one-stop and that’s not where they excel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff agreed that the tyre mishap was a “miscommunication”, and the Austrian was left frustrated as Russell will share the third row with team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When asked by Sky Sports Germany how satisfied he was with qualifying, Wolff said: \u201cNot at all. I think we had a fast car, but we didn\u2019t make any progress during the session.<\/p>\n

“Everyone else improved, but we didn\u2019t. We had everything under control in terms of strategy, so we were hoping for more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

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Subscribe to news alerts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell has explained the \u201cmiscommunication\u201d that led to him not using his desired tyre choice during the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,83521,813,816,3875,86917,44231,945,85],"class_list":["post-123569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-f1-italian-grand-prix-2025","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-george-russell","tag-george-russell-explains-tyre-mistake-in-f1-italian-gp-qualifying","tag-italian-gp","tag-mercedes","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}