George Russell has revealed that Mercedes team mate Kimi Antonelli is primed to help him with a tow during Qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix, despite their respective quests for the 2026 world title.<\/p>\n
Russell<\/a> arrives at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza 59 points behind Antonelli<\/a> in the Drivers\u2019 Championship standings<\/a>, having claimed two Grand Prix victories to the Italian\u2019s six so far this season.<\/p>\n Antonelli, however, will drop to the back of the grid for his home race<\/a> due to a full power unit change, ruling him out of pole position contention before the weekend has even started.<\/p>\n That has raised questions over whether Antonelli might be used to support Russell\u2019s own bid for pole by providing a slipstream along one of Monza\u2019s many long straights \u2013 in turn giving the Briton a valuable top-speed boost.<\/p>\n Giving his response during Thursday\u2019s media duties, Russell initially smiled, \u201cI hope so\u201d, before explaining that \u201cthey offered it\u201d and \u201cwe\u2019ll go for it, see if it works\u201d as Qualifying develops.<\/p>\n He continued: \u201cIt\u2019s not maybe as powerful as it once was with the wings open in [Straight Mode<\/a>] the whole time, but we\u2019ll work as a team. That\u2019s how we do things.\u201d<\/p>\n In terms of Antonelli\u2019s impending grid drop having any other impact on his preparations and approach to the weekend, Russell\u2019s take was clear.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, it doesn\u2019t change anything, because I always want to focus on myself, focus on my limitations and the areas I want to improve,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI always said it doesn\u2019t matter if I have a seven-time World Champion as my team mate or a rookie. The job is still the same, so my approach will be exactly the same.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cI think I\u2019m feeling much better since the summer break, and hoping just to continue building on that momentum.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, we know we\u2019ve got fierce competition at the moment with McLaren<\/a> and Ferrari<\/a> bringing upgrades. We\u2019re still on the back foot in terms of bringing these upgrades to the car.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know in that interim it\u2019s not going to be as straightforward as it once was, but hoping to fight for pole and the win again.\u201d<\/p>\n Nonetheless, Russell suggested that \u201cany of the top-four teams\u201d have the potential to succeed this weekend \u2013 again being quick to highlight McLaren after their back-to-back victories in Hungary and the Netherlands.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can say all we want [about the pecking order], but we\u2019ll soon find out,\u201d he commented. \u201cI think there will be a lot of tough competition.<\/p>\n \u201cThe momentum is with McLaren right now. Ferrari has upgrades this weekend<\/a>. We know Red Bull<\/a> has a strong power unit. So, I honestly think this weekend it could be between any of the top-four teams, but I hope it\u2019s us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell has revealed that Mercedes team mate Kimi Antonelli is primed to help him with a tow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":878703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-878702","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\/878702","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=878702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/878703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}