Mercedes
It was a mixed bag for Mercedes in the opening session. Russell ran two sets of softs and looked quick towards the end of the session, but Antonelli took a lot longer to get up to speed. He even clipped the walls late on, as he tried to explore every inch of the racing line. The rookie teenager did better in FP2, looked more comfortable and wound up in the top 10. He finished ahead of a lacklustre Russell, who just wasn’t quite on it in the second session – the warm track conditions certainly not favouring the Mercedes.
READ MORE: Mercedes suffer ‘slowest Friday’ in Monaco but Russell optimistic two-stop race offers ‘a chance’
George Russell – FP1: 1:12.482, P6; FP2: 1:12.092, P12
“It is always intense around Monaco but it’s amazing to drive here. The streets are narrow and fitting 20 F1 cars on the circuit always been a challenge. All teams always try to have a 2.5s gap between every car to be able to complete their program, but as Yuki (Tsunoda) said, it’s really “traffic paradise” around here.
“We were not particularly quick today, but I am still confident for tomorrow. There are clear improvements we can make overnight with the car, and we have some ideas about how to get the tyres into a better window for the single lap. Saturday is usually the key day in Monaco with the outcome of Qualifying being highly decisive for the race. With the mandatory two stop this year though, it will likely make things interesting. Being in the top three after Qualifying might not be as vital as it has been in years past. Nevertheless, we will be giving it our all to be as high up on the grid come Sunday.”
Kimi Antonelli – FP1: 1:12.765, P11; FP2: 1:12.002, P9
“Today was a bit tricky on my side. I struggled to find the right balance with the car and was unable to get the maximum out of the tyres. We experimented with different approaches to the warm-up in both sessions, but it still proved challenging to get the tyres in the right window on lap one. That said, we still learned a lot today. I also thoroughly enjoyed driving here in Monaco in F2 last year. In an F1 car though, it’s even more magical. I’m excited for tomorrow’s Qualifying session where we push the car to its absolute maximum with no room for error.
“Performance wise, the Ferraris looked strong in both FP1 and FP2. We also know that the McLarens have been right at the front since the start of the season. Tomorrow won’t be easy, therefore. As always though, we are focused on ourselves and trying to improve session-by-session. We’ll analyse all the data overnight and will be ready for tomorrow.”
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director
“As expected, Monaco is always challenging to get the low and high fuel work completed with all the usual red and yellow flags interrupting the sessions. However, today was still a reasonable day and we managed to get some positive work done on track.
“Overall, the car balance wasn’t in the place that the drivers need it to extract a strong lap time though. That balance was costing us across the whole speed range but particularly in the slow speed. That is something that we will be working hard to analyse overnight both here in Monaco and back in the simulator at Lauda Drive. We’ve already got some good areas of focus and are hopeful we can have an improved showing tomorrow.
“The mandatory two-stop regulation for this year, coupled with the use of the C6 tyre compound, will make things interesting on Sunday. Our main goal though is to be in a good place pace wise, both on the single lap and long run. That will help unlock our race come the Grand Prix and our focus now is to do that and get both our cars higher up in the time sheets tomorrow.”
