Mercedes
Russell started third, but got too late on the brakes into Turn 1, his car getting a bit squirrely. That sent him wide, and by the time he’d weaved his way round the bollards, he wound up rejoining down in seventh with front wing damage. An early stop for a new front wing cost him, meaning the rest of his afternoon was spent battling with Perez. As for Hamilton, he was a little in no man’s land. He didn’t have the pace to chase down the Ferraris and McLarens, but managed to finish comfortably ahead of his former foe Verstappen.
Lewis Hamilton, 5th
“We didn’t have the pace today to fight for more. The McLarens and the Ferrari in particularly were strong. I managed to keep up with Sainz but couldn’t do the longer stint and the one-stop that he was able to. If we had started ahead of him, we might have been able to hold him off. Ultimately though, we needed a better balance with the car today to achieve much more.
“It’s a shame to come away from a weekend where we were looking so strong without more to show for it. We looked good throughout practice and qualifying but couldn’t quite match that today. The field is so tight now and it will be fascinating to see what happens over the coming races. We will keep working hard and hopefully have a stronger race in Baku in two weeks’ time.”
George Russell, 7th
“It was a frustrating day today. Ultimately, we didn’t have the pace to fight for the podium, but my race came undone at the first corner. It is disappointing when that happens after all the efforts the team put in over the weekend. I made a good start but got caught in the dirty air behind Piastri. I locked up to avoid him and picked up some front-wing damage. That compromised my opening stint, and we lost time in the pit stop having to change the wing itself.
“Our pace hasn’t been as strong as it was prior to the summer break, either here or in Zandvoort. As a team, we will go away, put the effort in, and find out why that is. Other teams seem to have taken a step forward so we will need to work diligently to get back onto terms with them.”
Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport
“Congratulations to Ferrari and Charles Leclerc on a well-deserved victory today. It is always a special moment when the scarlet red car wins here at Monza. Our own race was better than Zandvoort but still not good. We completed the two-stop strategy as we suffered from graining on the front left tyre, which made the one-stop unlikely. It was a difficult challenge to manage and hard to know whether to commit to the one-stop or push harder and go to the two-stop. Our pace today made it difficult to score much more than we did on either path though.
“We have not performed at the level we did before the summer shutdown in the last two races. When you don’t have the pace, it makes strategy decisions difficult as we saw today. We have some time to analyse why that is now before Baku and aim to come back stronger.”
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director
“We didn’t have a strong race today. Heading into the Grand Prix, we knew that the tyres were going to be fragile and likely require a bit of management in order to make long stints work. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the pace to be able to both manage the tyres and keep up with our competitors ahead.
“Lewis ended up P5 after lap one and came home in that same position. We tried the two-stop strategy against Sainz as it seemed unlikely we would be able to pass him on track. Unfortunately, we couldn’t recatch the Ferrari in the final stint. George meanwhile had a difficult first lap; he had to bail out at turn one when and then broke his front at the second chicane. That led to an early and long stop. We could have potentially gained a place on Verstappen if we had committed to the one stop but ultimately the opening lap damage was the bigger cost. It looks like we’ve lost some pace relative to our rivals since the summer break. We will go away and investigate why that is and what we need to do to put in a more competitive showing in Baku.”
