Qualifying in Monaco was a disaster for Mercedes, but could the team and in particular George Russell be the dark horses on Sunday as strategy choices play out with the bespoke two change rules?
The Brackley outfit’s day went from bad to worse after Kimi Antonelli crashed at the chicane at the end of Q1, and then Russell stopped in the tunnel early in Q2 after his engine cut due to a suspected electrical issue.
They will thus start Sunday’s race in P14 and P15, and thus somewhat out of position given that after a frustrating FP3 Russell found pace for qualifying, and was as high as P5 in Q1.
Amid all the speculation on crazy strategies by those at the back with little to lose Russell clearly has the quickest car of that group, and if the team makes the right calls and he benefits from clean air and optimum stop timing, he could make progress.
The stoppage remains something of a mystery, although it was related to a bump on the track.
“Yeah, it was definitely the cause,” he said when I asked him about it. “But it was a bump in the straight, a bump that’s been there all weekend and a bump that I’ve felt all weekend.
“But for whatever reason on this occasion, the whole engine switched off when I hit this bump. Really disappointing, because we got ourselves a bit lost this weekend with the setup, and we went back to basics for quali.
“From lap one, I felt back in the game, and also Kimi stayed with probably more with the setup he had in FP3. I went back to something that we knew. He was struggling. And we were. And I really feel we would have been in the top four today. And now we’re not.”
Russell was clearly pleased with the huge step made at the start of qualifying.
“Absolutely, it was clicking in Q1, and we were one of the few drivers not to take any new tyres.” he said.
“I did one corner in Q2, and I was already almost two-tenths up, and already that have been plenty enough to be into Q3 with two sets.
“We have the two hard tyres. We had a real chance this weekend, but now it’s up in smokes and weekend over. So it’s pretty deflating.”
But can Mercedes roll the dice and do something special on Sunday? The only other team with two sets of new hards is McLaren.
“For sure, there’s going to be some crazy strategies, but we qualified 14th, we probably should have been in the top five,” he said. “So there’s 10 cars between me and where we should have been.
“And if people are doing crazy things with the strategy, half of those guys will go one way, the other half will go the other way. Therefore whichever one we decide, we’re still stuck behind five drivers.
“You’re going to see one of two things, people pitting on lap one, or people going really long into the race. We do have a small advantage with the two hard tyres, but if you can’t pass, there’s not much you can do.”
I asked Russell which route he would prefer if he had to make that choice now.
“We will probably choose as soon as we know what tyres teams have started on,” hew replied. If they’re starting on the C6, you know they going for a very early one.
“If everybody starts on a hard tyre, you know they’re intending to go longer. So as soon as we see what they’re on, we’ll make that choice…”
Adam Cooper F1 