George Russell has ideas that can work in Monaco as he and Toto Wolff dissects the move and penalty in F1 Monaco GP, while Andrea Kimi Antonelli adds his view.
Despite the low-key result on Saturday, there was outside hope for Mercedes with the two-stop strategy on Sunday in F1 Monaco GP. It was not full-proof, but one which they could have tried to get at least one car in the points. But it was all undone after what Visa Cash App RB and Williams did.
After they backed up the whole field, both Russell and Antonelli were sitting duck behind Alexander Albon and Carlos Sainz. So much so that the Brit eventually cut across the chicane outside the tunnel to pass the Thai and gain track position. He was ready to take the penalty even in doing so.
The stewards didn’t see that as a good thing as he was handed a drive-through instead of 10s time penalty. Russell had no regrets considering he finished 11th, even though he had the penalty. He joked about Albon paying the bill for dinner, which the Thai obliged after the grand prix.
Russell provided some steps to change Monaco after the experiment of two-stop didn’t work. His team boss Wolff chimed in too on that. The Austrian also revealed the text he got from James Vowles during the race. In all this, Antonelli tried to help Russell as much by sacrificing his race eventually.
Race, strategy –
Russell: “We had planned with Kimi and I to basically have the same strategy as what VCARB and Williams implemented with the two drivers, but ultimately, qualifying 14th and 15th, there is nothing you can do. You pit on Lap 1, we would have finished nowhere; you go along, you finish nowhere. Ironically, I finished in a higher position by doing my manoeuvre with Alex than I would have done if I hadn’t. That in itself proves the system’s pretty flawed. No, I’m not talking about just the two-stop in general, it’s too easy to have Lawson [taking] the 40-second gap to help Hadjar, and that was comfortable for him. Then Sainz did another 40 seconds, driving four seconds off the pace here is dead easy. Our strategy said anything less than three seconds, the pace advantage is a zero per cent chance of an overtake.
“You need four and a half seconds for a 50 per cent chance of an overtake. So you effectively can put an F2 car out there and they’ve got a chance of holding up an F1 car. I don’t know what the solution is. We were lucky in ‘22 and ‘23 that the wet races offered some excitement. Do they wet the track? I don’t know. It didn’t work because it was too easy for drivers’ teams to work together to create the pit stop gap, invert the cars, the next driver create the pit stop gap and gives their teammate the free stop. We had planned that ourselves with Kimi and I, because that was our only hope of getting some points. If everyone is driving flat out, as you do at any other race, and we implemented that strategy, we both would have finished in the points. But VCARB did it, Williams did it, what can you do?”
Antonelli: “Overall, yeah, it was not the most exciting of the races. We were trying with the strategy with didn’t work out and then I just tried to do what the team asked me to. We were driving like on the pace of Formula 2 initially. It was not easy, first of all to keep the focus. And then the tyre temperature was just so low. We were just sliding around despite the loss the grip. It was not easy, I just did the best for my team and tried to get at least one of the cars into the points. The thing is…initially our strategy was looking okay but then it turns out that Visa and Williams were playing the same game as us and at that point, it was too late to do something. I think it wouldn’t have brought anything and I don’t think I would have gained any places, so I think we couldn’t have done much different.”
Wolff: “We had the gang at the front, who had basically free air. And then midfield, people battling for points, backing up massively. There were teams that were punching above their weight, like the Visa RBs, and they had to protect their position, as well as the Williams. And we were probably one of the victims of that. But we were, because our Saturday didn’t go well. We had a fast car. Kimi touched the barrier, and that’s absolutely on for a rookie. And with George, we just ran out of power, out of nowhere. And it was a car that was good for the first two rows, call it, or better. And then you race on the fun part of the track, where we were, I was just not seeing any land. We have seen some, I remember a few years ago when Alonso backed the whole field out by a minute. And I remember that because Lewis was running third or fourth of the field.
“And he said, how far ahead are the leaders? And we said, the leaders are 10 seconds behind you. They are lapping you. I think 40 seconds when Alonso backed off back in the day, so it happened. No, there was no scenario where we could have got a point. I think whatever back-off Kimi would have done, we would have always been behind the Williams. We had quite an interesting discussion this morning on strategy. I said, well, let’s do that. Stop early, come out and then catch up. It’s what we did at the DTM back in the day. It was fantastic. You stopped, you were last and you won the race. But the more intelligent people in our strategy group demonstrated to me that that’s not going to work here in Monaco. It was the best strategy. You can see that the ones that did the turnover, they didn’t change anything. It wouldn’t have scored us points.”
Overtake, penalty –
Russell: “I was a little bit surprised but I’ve got to be honest, I didn’t really care because I was out of the points. I didn’t get the chance yesterday to enjoy Monaco and I just said ‘screw it, I want to enjoy Monaco. I want to enjoy driving this track full gas. It’s one of the best circuits in the world, and that’s what I did; the last 25 laps was the most fun I’ve had all weekend, pretty exhilarating. I was really pushing the limits, testing myself. Ironically, if I didn’t do this, I would have finished maybe 15th or 16th. I’m having dinner with him tonight, so he is definitely getting the bill.”
Antonelli: “Of course, I didn’t want to loose the position on him, the goal was to try and stay with George especially for our strategy. I tried to overtake but it was nothing outstanding, I looked at the onboard and I didn’t touch him or anything, so it was nothing outstanding or dirty on that side. It was an aggressive move, but as I said it before, my intention was just to overtake, of course it is not nice to see someone in the wall but at the same time, it is not like my aim was to get touched, I completely didn’t touch.”
Wolff: “He [James Vowles] sent me a text in the race. ‘I’m sorry. We had no choice given what happened ahead.’ I answered, ‘We know’. James is one of my guys, and I don’t want to sound patronising because he’s making a career as a team principal, and he’s doing really well. He had to do it. You know, it’s two cars in the points, and I think the way it started was these Visa RBs that packed us back off, and that’s what we had to do. Two points. I think the amount of take-off was catching him. I think Kimi was the one that nearly crashed into one of the Williams on braking. When you think about going five seconds slower, it becomes a totally different track, different breaking points. With George, same situation. Difficult to stop the car, just went straight. I think it was a moment of frustration to do something different. We knew that it was a stop-and-go. We were hoping it’s maybe 10 seconds. But it didn’t change anything.”
What can be done –
Russell: “We definitely need to have a real think about what the solution is here in Monaco. I appreciate trying something this year for two stops; clearly, it did not work at all. For all of the drivers, qualifying is the most exhilarating moment of the weekend. Do we accept that there’s no race? It is a qualifying race, you do one on Saturday and one on Sunday. Then the guy qualifies on pole gets some points, get some trophy and the one on Sunday gets some more points because that’s what we love most and I think that’s what you guys enjoy watching the most, and 99 per cent of the other people in Monaco are here sipping champagne on the yacht, so they don’t really care.
Wolff: “I think, we’re motorsport people. So the perspective I look at it is that most of the relevant sporting event is on Saturday, and it’s always been. But what Formula One has created here is unbelievable. Grandstands full, terraces full, boats like I’ve never seen before. Yesterday I filmed from my terrace a traffic jam of one and a half kilometers at 2.30 in the morning. And that is the kind of 360 degree angle that Formula One needs to have. We have spectacular races on a Saturday. They’re kind of old school tracks that function for whatever reason. We don’t know either. And here we tried something. We tried an experiment with two-stop, didn’t change anything in the outcome. So I think, even if this was a zero-stop race, and we were doing autocross on a Sunday, it’s still a mega venue.
“And then it’s the Saturday shootout that matters. But I think what we can look at is to create some Monaco-specific regulations that there’s only a maximum of back-off that you can have. You can’t hold up a train. Overtaking anyone is difficult. You can see you can’t go slower than X seconds from the leaders. That would probably create a little bit more of a closer field. Does it improve the overtaking? I don’t think that’s feasible. We need to talk also with ACM here. Is there anything we can change on the layout? Difficult in a city. We’re limited by a mountain and the sea. But, I see the positives. It is an unbelievable spectacle.”
Here’s dinner bill: https://www.instagram.com/p/DKF1sskt0Ys/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D
Here’s George Russell on penalty: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-monaco-grand-prix-russell-deliberately-takes-a-penalty-after-passing-albon-off-track.1833111433456256089
Here’s Frederic Vassuer, Andrea Stella on Monaco
Here’s how F1 Monaco GP panned out
