A seventh-place finish for George Russell and a retirement for home hero Andrea Kimi Antonelli. Not the result Mercedes team had hoped for in Imola. The Silver Arrows couldn’t keep up with the pace of Max Verstappen and the McLarens. Mechanical issues for Antonelli and bad luck with the virtual safety car for Russell mean that the German team is going home with a meagre six points. ‘The worst day as a team in years’, Russell labels the Italian race.
The top five streak of Mr Consistency George Russell is over. The Brit finished in Imola for the first time this season not among the five best drivers, crossing the finish line in seventh place. Russell was still able to score valuable points for Mercedes, after teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli had to end the race prematurely. The home hero was sidelined with a mechanical problem on his W16. All in all, not a good day for the Silver Arrows.
Russell even calls it the ‘worst day as a team in years’. The Sunday started off so well for the driver, who was allowed to start the race from the second row. “I had a great start and I was hoping that Oscar (Piastri, ed.) would move a bit to hold off Max (Verstappen, ed.), but that didn’t happen and from that moment on it went downhill,” the third-place starter Russell tells about the fight at the front to Formula1.com. “A disastrous day, I had no pace and I was glad when I saw the checkered flag.”
Back to the Drawing Board
The British driver managed to hold onto his third position for a while, until his medium tyres gave out and Lando Norris overtook him. The Mercedes driver immediately pitted, too early to benefit from the subsequent virtual safety car. In the end, he could do no better than a seventh-place finish. “We knew it would be a challenge. We’re always slow when it’s warm, and today it was warm,” Russell continues. “At this moment, I have no answers, it was probably the slowest day we’ve had as a team in a few years in terms of pace. We need to go back to the drawing board.”
While Russell was able to score some points for Mercedes, the race ended in disappointment for local hero Andrea Kimi Antonelli. The Italian had to pull over in lap 46 due to a mechanical issue, unable to finish his home race. “To be honest, I had high hopes, but after a few laps, I started having trouble with my accelerator and in the end, it completely failed,” Antonelli explains. Despite the setback, the young driver remains surprisingly optimistic. “Of course it’s a shame, but these things happen and I think the pace at the end of the day was not too bad.”
