{"id":880350,"date":"2026-09-05T01:24:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T01:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/880350\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T01:24:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T01:24:14","slug":"george-russell-hits-back-for-mercedes-in-italian-formula-1-grand-prix-practice-at-monza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/880350\/","title":{"rendered":"George Russell hits back for Mercedes in Italian Formula 1 Grand Prix practice at Monza"},"content":{"rendered":"

Formula 1 title contender George Russell has hit back at early pacesetters Ferrari with the fastest lap of \u200bthe day for Mercedes in Italian Grand Prix practice.<\/p>\n

Russell surged to the top of the standings in second practice at the fast Monza circuit.<\/p>\n

His lap \u200bof one minute and 22.559 seconds was \u200c0.120 quicker than Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who was second in session two.<\/p>\n

Russell served a notice of intent ahead of Sunday’s race, which he needs to win to close the 59-point gap to championship-leading teammate Kimi Antonelli.<\/p>\n

Leclerc had clocked a best time of 1:23.008, which was 0.173 quicker than Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton, in the first practice session.<\/p>\n

“There’s still some work ahead of us as our competitors look strong, but \u2060so far the feeling with the car was solid,” Leclerc said.<\/p>\n

Seven-time champion Hamilton was fifth in the second session.<\/p>\n

Antonelli, who is set to start from the back of the grid due to engine penalties, was third fastest in the second session and 0.141 off the pace.<\/p>\n

McLaren’s reigning world champion, Lando Norris, was fourth, while his Australian teammate, Oscar Piastri, was sixth in the second session.<\/p>\n

Norris has won the past two races and will be chasing a hat-trick on Sunday.<\/p>\n

“The pace isn’t where we need it to be right now,” Norris said.<\/p>\n

Gasly docked Monaco podium<\/p>\n

Alpine’s Pierre Gasly was stripped of his third place at the Monaco Grand Prix and Isack Hadjar reinstated to third position following a successful appeal by two Formula 1 teams.<\/p>\n

Gasly dropped to seventh place in the June 7 race after \u200ba pair of \u200cfive-second penalties were applied.<\/p>\n

\"Pierre<\/p>\n

Pierre Gasly was relegated to seventh place in the Monaco Grand Prix standings. (Getty Images\/NurPhoto: Luca Rossini)<\/p>\n

Initially, the penalties for speeding infractions had been rescinded one week after the race.<\/p>\n

McLaren and Red Bull appealed to \u200cthe FIA’s International Court of Appeal, with a hearing held \u2060in Paris on August 25.<\/p>\n

The decision to \u200creinstate the original finish order \u200bwas announced Friday.<\/p>\n

Piastri was elevated to fourth place following the successful appeal.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula 1 title contender George Russell has hit back at early pacesetters Ferrari with the fastest lap of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,13275,826,813,3875,841,57190,2328,10115,823,913,945,932,806,805,803,804,2333,83160,918,85],"class_list":["post-880350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-charles-leclerc","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-george-russell","tag-grand-prix","tag-italian-grand-prix","tag-italy","tag-kimi-antonelli","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-mclaren","tag-mercedes","tag-monza","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-practice","tag-red-bull","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880350","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=880350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}