George Russell endured another frustrating outing as Mercedes struggled to keep up with Ferrari in the Italian Grand Prix, leaving him to drive a lonely race on his way to fifth in Monza.<\/p>\n
The first part of Qualifying gave the Briton hope that they could challenge other teams more effectively as he topped the timesheets on a set of medium tyres. However, Mercedes elected to switch to the soft compound for his final lap in Q3 despite his protests, and he settled for P5.<\/p>\n
Like the other drivers in the top five<\/a>, Russell\u2019s position hadn\u2019t changed by the time the chequered flag fell, despite his early attempts to overtake the lead Ferrari of Charles Leclerc<\/a>. Every time he closed the gap, it opened up again as they raced down the straights.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were expecting to be two-tenths behind Ferrari<\/a> and a bit more behind everyone else,\u201d he admitted after the race. \u201cI was reasonably pleased \u2013 I don\u2019t think we could have done anything more.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it was just very challenging to get by Charles \u2013 they were so fast on the straights. Had I just managed to get past him, it could have been a slightly different picture. Obviously that wasn\u2019t the case. It was a pretty scrappy opening few laps, but fifth was where the car deserved to finish today.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously a bit of a shame to lose more ground to Ferrari in the constructors\u2019, but I was pretty satisfied with the race.\u201d<\/p>\n The Brackley outfit are now 20 points behind their Italian rivals in the standings<\/a>, with Kimi Antonelli<\/a> adding two points to the tally in his second home event of the season.<\/p>\n