George Russell admitted Mercedes’ performance in Friday practice at the F1 Monaco Grand Prixꦍ was their slowest of🍌 the 2025 season so far.

Russell was 12th-fastest in the final FP2 classification, over 0.7s off the pace set by Ferrari’s 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Charles Leclerc.

Mercedes teammate 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Kimi Antonelli didn’t fare much better, setting the ninth-fas🧔test time, 0.6s off the best time of the session.

Mercedes had high hopes going into this wee꧃kend due to their qualifying form.

In the hands o❀f Russell, Mercedes have consistently qualified well this year.

Russell hasꩲn’t failed to out-𒁏qualify outside the top five at any race in 2025.

However, based on Friday, Mercedes wi🍬l꧋l need a significant overnight improvement to challenge McLaren and Ferrari.

Reflecting on Friday in the principality, Russell said: “It’s always intens෴e ꦬaround Monaco. I mean, the track isn’t quite big enough for 20 F1 cars. As our mate

Yuki [Tsunoda] says, traffic paradise around the track♍ and it’s kind of how it was today.

“It’s a𝄹lways amazing driving around here. We weren’t very quick today but tomorrow is usually the main day but this weekend with the mandated two-stop it𒁃 will be interesting.

“✨You’ve seen some teams alre🧜ady throw away the hard tyre which was a bit of a surprise to us so that sort of shows what they’re looking likely to do a different plan than what we were expecting. It will be interesting.”

Russell hopes for 2024-like turnaround

Russell was in a similar position last year.

The Mercedes driꦑver was nine-tenths off Leclerc in FP2 at the 2024 Monaco GP.

Come qualifying, Russell was jusওt 0.2s off pole and settled for fifth on the grid.

“In terms of p♕ure performance it’s probably been our slowest Friday,” Russell added. “To be honest,🥀 we had a bad Friday here last year and we were only a tenth off pole in the end. Still all to play for and I am still pretty excited to see how Sunday will plan out.

“Even if we’re not in the top five, top three tomorrow, I still think there maybe a bit of a chance on Sunday, espec❀ially first time being as it is this year. We will keep our hopes alive.”

Russell currently sits fourth in thꦯe 2025 F1 drivers’ standings on 99 points, 47 points off Oscar Piastri.