Russell: In Monaco you have to be prepared to adapt quickly

Mercedes is generally pleased with the performance of technical innovations, which were tested for the first time in the previous stage at Imola, and George Russell hopes the special nature of Monaco’s city circuit will allow it to perform more competitively.

George Russell: “The car has definitely become more balanced, and you can feel that all lap. At the beginning of the year we had balance problems that manifested themselves differently in fast and slow corners. The car was more or less okay in some corners, but much worse in others, and the pattern varied from circuit to circuit, but I believe we are progressing gradually.

You can see this when you look at the size of our gap compared to Red Bull, but also our advantage over other mid-pack teams: we have clearly improved. However, we have to admit that McLaren and Ferrari have also improved, so we have to keep working, keep modernizing the car, and the team is now doing everything it can to prepare the next set of technical innovations as quickly as possible.

In Monaco you always have to overcome different kinds of difficulties that can arise on any day of the weekend, so it is important to find an optimal approach. The condition of the track surface changes quickly, speeds increase and often a qualifying lap can be completed three seconds faster than in the first practice.

Even if Friday goes well, in preparation for Saturday you need to be ready to quickly adapt to any changes. For example, today when I was meeting with the engineers, the sun was shining brightly and when I went outside it was already raining. I think all this adds extra spice to the weekend’s events.

But overall we can hope that we can be a bit more competitive on this circuit, as in Monaco the corner speeds are about the same.”