{"id":125219,"date":"2025-09-07T09:39:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T09:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/125219\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T09:39:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T09:39:09","slug":"george-russell-concedes-mercedes-definitely-underperformed-in-italian-grand-prix-qualifying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/125219\/","title":{"rendered":"George Russell concedes Mercedes &#8216;definitely underperformed&#8217; in Italian Grand Prix Qualifying"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">George Russell believes &#8220;we definitely underperformed&#8221; during Qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix, with the two Mercedes drivers set to start from the third row.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">The Briton qualified sixth, over <a class=\"text-brand-hot-red underline decoration-1 hover:decoration-[3px]\" href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/latest\/article\/verstappen-beats-norris-and-piastri-to-pole-for-italian-gp-in-qualifying.7j6Ls1jDJUp67EqfCoQhiN\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">three-tenths slower than polesitter Max Verstappen<\/a> at Monza on Saturday, but will start fifth for the race with Lewis Hamilton set to serve a five-place grid penalty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\"><a class=\"text-brand-hot-red underline decoration-1 hover:decoration-[3px]\" href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/drivers\/george-russell\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Russell<\/a> was left frustrated having topped Q1 on the medium tyre compared with everyone else on the soft compound, and asked for the yellow-walled rubber for his final Q3 lap.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">However, he was given a set of softs and failed to improve, leaving him to question why Mercedes seemed to lose pace through the one-hour session on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">&#8220;It was looking pretty good at one point. Obviously quickest in Q1, I was pretty happy on those mediums,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">&#8220;Q2 wasn&#8217;t too bad either but we just got slower as the session progressed so that was a real shame, we definitely underperformed in Q3.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">&#8220;I&#8217;m sure we&#8217;ll have some answers. Obviously a bit of miscommunication with the tyre choice. P5 starting tomorrow, it&#8217;s not amazing but hopefully we can fight from there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">Team mate <a class=\"text-brand-hot-red underline decoration-1 hover:decoration-[3px]\" href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/drivers\/kimi-antonelli\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kimi Antonelli<\/a> put in an impressive performance in front of his home crowd, finishing seventh quickest and less than one-tenth slower than Russell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">The 20-year-old believes more was possible but a small car change ahead of his final run put him on the back foot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">&#8220;Much better Qualifying. It was very tight, was not easy out there but I think overall [it] was a decent job and [the] last lap was not great,&#8221; said Antonelli, who will start from P6 after Hamilton&#8217;s penalty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">&#8220;There was more on the table, especially I struggled with the rear quite a bit because also we tried something a little bit different with the tyre temperature and I struggled a little bit first part of the lap.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">&#8220;I think on my side I could have done a little bit better as well, but still P6 for tomorrow so we can not complain too much.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell believes &#8220;we definitely underperformed&#8221; during Qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix, with the two Mercedes drivers&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-125219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125219","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=125219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}