Russell evaluates Monza prospects after losing out to ‘flying’ Gasly

George Russell shared his predictions for the Italian Grand Prix after settling for second place in Qualifying, as Alpine driver Pierre Gasly executed a remarkable lap to clinch pole position at the last moment.

With the second Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli set to start at the back of the grid, and Ferrari struggling to replicate their timesheet-topping pace from earlier in the weekend, it looked as though Russell had a relatively clear path to pole position.

His first effort – assisted by a tow from his team mate – saw him take P1 early in Q3, and while he complained about “front locking and instability” in the car, Russell went even faster on his final lap.

However, the possibility of a shock result quickly grew as Gasly also improved after showing eye-catching speed through the session, and the Frenchman ultimately snatched pole by a margin of 0.060s.

“Firstly, massive congrats to Pierre because that's an incredible performance,” Russell reflected. “We were actually finishing a game of chess about 15 minutes before Qualifying and he beat me there, but I thought 'well I'll beat you on Qualifying' and here we are!

“He's ahead of me again, so huge congrats to him. Of course I was disappointed not to get the pole position, was a bit messy with [Max] Verstappen opening the lap.

“I did the lap very close but Pierre and Alpine have been super fast, even from Q1, so happy to see them get a good result.”

He will be hoping to capitalise on both his front-row start and Antonelli’s grid penalty to recover some points in the Drivers’ Championship, where he sits in second place 59 points adrift of the Italian.

Despite the unlikely way Qualifying unfolded, he maintained that it didn’t impact his optimism for the rest of the weekend due to the numerous overtaking spots that Monza offers.

“Of all the circuits, this is probably the least important one to be on pole for [to] fight for victory,” Russell explained. “I was very happy to see Pierre on pole because he’s a great driver, a great person, hasn't had many opportunities of having the car beneath him to fight for pole. This weekend they were flying.

“We’re going to probably look back on the data from FP2 a bit more closely now because we didn’t really think they were a threat at all.

“We knew they looked more competitive, but sometimes teams are running less fuel or they’re using high power in practice. I wouldn’t say we disregarded it, but I don’t think anybody expected them to be fighting for pole.”