George Russell: It was a strange race

Mercedes drivers took fifth and seventh places in Monaco – however, they started from the same positions and George Russell, commenting on the race results, admitted that it was strange.

George Russell (5th): “It was a long race, just like old times, and the character of it was strange. We rode the first 30 laps without straining ourselves. When Max Verstappen went to the pits, I accelerated and only then realized that we were already close to Ferrari and McLaren in terms of pace. And this made me very happy.

Max decided to increase the pressure on me, but I continued to keep the situation under control. This is our best race of the season so far because towards the end we were already overtaking the top four and I finished just a few seconds behind the winner. Overall, this weekend left many positive impressions.

We spent a lot of time this morning analyzing tactical options. As we drove to the starting grid I was very happy to see that everyone in front of me was on Medium tyres. Things got even better when Carlos Sainz stopped on the side of the road on the first lap, but the race was immediately stopped by red flags, making life difficult for everyone.

In Monaco the race turns out to be interesting if you can spice it up through tactics, but in this situation I simply had to forget about the tactical preparations. But we still did the maximum.”

Lewis Hamilton (7th): “This weekend we saw certain signs of improvement and that makes us hopeful, because for the third race in a row we are introducing certain technical innovations. It’s nice to see this, we are gradually improving and we hope that in the next phase I will get a modernized front wing.

Today’s race was uneventful, after the restart everyone kept their pace and whatever tires you had on your car you had a chance to reach the finish. That’s why we lost the opportunity to compete for higher positions, and that was sad. But I’m already looking forward to the race in Montreal, where, as always, I intend to give it my all – let’s see what we can achieve there.”

Toto WolffTeam boss: “Overall it was a positive weekend, in qualifying we got closer to the leaders than in previous stages of the season and showed good pace in the race. Moreover, despite the race being interrupted by red flags, we lost the opportunity to use tactical maneuvers.

For the restart we decided to switch to Medium tires, and our riders managed their wear well. It wasn’t necessary to put Lewis in the pits, but we could call him into the pits to earn an extra bonus point for the fastest lap.

We are moving in the right direction, we understand the areas where chassis balance needs to be improved and we are introducing new products to achieve this. Obviously there will be more successful performances, and not so successful ones, depending on the nature of the track, but overall I’m happy with the progress made. Let’s see how we perform in Canada.”