{"id":625424,"date":"2026-06-07T04:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T04:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/625424\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T04:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T04:26:12","slug":"toto-wolff-explains-george-russells-f1-monaco-gp-qualifying-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/625424\/","title":{"rendered":"Toto Wolff explains George Russell’s F1 Monaco GP qualifying struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mercedes Formula 1 team principal Toto Wolff has revealed that a loss of confidence in his machinery was the primary catalyst for George Russell’s underwhelming performance during qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite showing flashes of promise during the final practice session around Monte Carlo, the British driver struggled to replicate that form in qualifying. While his team-mate Kimi Antonelli went on to secure pole position, Russell found himself down in sixth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking to Sky Sports F1 following the tense qualifying session, Wolff shared: “We tend to look a lot on the psychological side, but George is very robust and resilient. There were a few races that went against him because luck wasn’t on his side, or he wasn’t there at the right moment. And here, I don’t think it’s so much as a psychological side.
\u00a0
“He just never had the confidence in the car. Qualifying started on a back foot. FP3 was still very OK.<\/p>\n

\"George <\/p>\n

George Russell, Mercedes<\/p>\n

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

“And once you start to run behind the performance and you lose the confidence, it’s super difficult to catch up again. And I think it would have been one session more, he would have been there or thereabouts, but he didn’t have any grip. Monaco, no grip means you can’t push it.”<\/p>\n

After starting the season on a high note with wins at the Australian Grand Prix and Chinese sprint race, Russell suffered car issues during qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix, had his strategy hampered by a safety car at the Japanese Grand Prix and faced more car issues at the Canadian Grand Prix.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Antonelli became the youngest driver to lead the championship after back-to-back wins at the Chinese and Japanese Grands Prix, before continuing to win the Miami and Canadian Grands Prix. He has now extended his lead to 43 points over Russell.<\/p>\n

Photos from Monaco GP – Saturday<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes Formula 1 team principal Toto Wolff has revealed that a loss of confidence in his machinery was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[211511,372,59,9307,6964,211510,101,212093,6541,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-625424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-f1-monaco-grand-prix","tag-formula-1","tag-gb","tag-george-russell","tag-mercedes","tag-monaco-gp","tag-sports","tag-toto-wolff-explains-george-russells-f1-monaco-gp-qualifying-struggles","tag-trendingteam","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}