George Russell lamented tyre struggles in Imola GP, as Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Bradley Lord add on handling home event pressure.
Mercedes’ Russell worked their magic on Saturday in F1 Imola GP when he qualified third after using a medium tyre to do so, on his final attempt. That strategy gave him a good starting position when teammate Antonelli was knocked out in Q2 at his home event in Italy.
Russell had a good launch but was stuck behind Oscar Piastri, which allowed Max Verstappen through into the lead. The Brit tried to keep Lando Norris behind, but he simply couldn’t hold on for long after his tyres started to degrade. It was mostly the rear tyres which gave him the most trouble.
By the time he pitted, he already lost track positions. He lost further ground which allowed the Ferrari pair to jump him along with Alexander Albon, to finish a lonely seventh. It was another struggle in hot conditions, as he faces similar problems like Mercedes did last year.
Teammate Antonelli eventually had to retire due to throttle pedal. Before retiring, he passed Lewis Hamilton and was managing pace to keep him behind. It was his first DNF in F1, which ironically happened in his home event. The Italian conceded that he got a bit overwhelmed.
He will have to check his emotions going forward, especially in his home event. There’s good learning, which Mercedes communications officer Lord agreed, who undertook media duties, since Toto Wolff did not attend the grand prix, due to his son’s graduation in Los Angeles.
Race, troubles –
Russell: “Yeah, very odd. On the laps of the grid, I was reporting problems with the car and I thought something was wrong. The team had a good look round and saw nothing and that feeling continued for 60 odd laps after. We had absolutely zero pace. There’s clearly a trend when it’s hot. The track was really hot. When it’s hot we’re nowhere and when it’s cold we’re quick. That was the trend last year, the same trend this year. So, yeah, we need to try and solve that. It didn’t feel quite right. Well, it was just like my rear wheels were moving. So, we’ll review it.
“There was nothing obvious standing out but even in a straight line the car was moving around but the rear tyre [temperatures] were through the roof. So, you know, we do have a bit of a fundamental. It’s either the fronts are overheating or the rears are overheating. Circuit to circuit. But it’s not the first time we’ve reported that. So, it was probably just the first time where all of our rivals probably had a semi-decent race. Quali pace has been decent this year so that’s the only promising thing.”
Antonelli: “Well, the thing is on the hard – stuck in the DRS train – and also driving dirty air was not easy. But I think overall was good to the defence on Lewis but then on the medium as I said I had issue pretty much straight away. So, a bit hard to say with the pace overall I think the weekend was probably the worst in terms of performance.”
Lord: “The big limitation today was rear axle for us and rear overheating. We have found ourselves front limited at some circuits so far this year, so we’ve got the challenge of the work this weekend has been on the rear axle and that’s been our big limitation. It’s clear. If anything it felt like the gap between our qualifying pace and our race pace was, if anything, bigger this weekend and in the race, rather than smaller, which obviously was the aim of the work that we’ve been doing. So lots for us to dig through and understand better in order to see where we’ve made improvements with the car and where potentially we’ve taken the wrong path and we may need to change in our thinking and change what we are doing in order to have less of a delta between the single lap pace and the long run pace.
“Because certainly in the race there were plenty of cars who qualified behind us were matching us if not quicker than us over the longer stint. In terms of strategy, I think Leclerc stopped early because he was having difficulty with the tyres, the base plan as we saw the cars at the front do was to try and make the one-stop work with medium and hard. We didn’t immediately see the need to cover but George came over the radio and said the tyres were going and he could the rear right tyre in particular very badly grained, so that was the trigger to stop and by then, yes, we had been undercut. We similarly undercut some other cars in the same way but overall, the early stop was forced on us by rear limitation rather than big plan that we had going into the race.”
Lap 1 –
Russell: “If you leave the door open, you know Max is going to take it and, the door was open and he took it. So, that was a bit frustrating. I was obviously boxed in. I made a really strong start. But the track’s just too narrow for these big F1 cars these days. There’s nothing you can do.”
DNF, handling home pressure –
Antonelli: “It was a shame to finish like this. We were lucky with the VSC but obviously it was also the risk of trying their alternative strategy and then on the medium already after 2, 3 laps I started to have the issues with the throttle and started to have less power on the straights but it was a bit inconsistent as well because one lap the power was okay but then another lap I was losing a lot and it was not easy and then unfortunately it went off completely and it’s okay to end up like this but yeah now I need to review better what happened this whole weekend in order to be back stronger in Monaco.
“No, I mean, I absolutely love the support of the fans I just think on my side I didn’t manage energy that well and that compromised definitely the performance on track but was a really good lesson because I could feel it I was not as relaxed was a bit more tense while driving so ahead of the next home race was a really good lesson but now we will focus on Monaco because it’s going to be important to be on top of the game.”
Lord: “It was something in the throttle pedal assembly meant that, from the early 30s laps, the throttle wasn’t delivering full power, and then that was gradually degrading, and then, obviously, he lost the throttle completely. So it was a failure in the throttle that meant that it wouldn’t deliver power. So that was why he had to retire. Again, not a good thing to have happen, to be a reliability problem coming upon us as well. For Kimi, the first focus is performance. We knew this would be a big weekend, and there’s been a lot of focus, a lot of attention. I think, within the team, we’ve seen him as focused as ever and concentrated, but obviously experiencing all of this for the first time, all the things you can control, but also all the things you can’t control, is a new phenomenon. We’ve got to view it as a learning experience, understand what were the moments that lifted him and gave him energy, what bits potentially felt like overload, and then we’ll adapt for both busy race weekends.
“But then also particularly the next home race in Italy in September as we go forward. I think he’s said himself that that was a very important lesson. Obviously, this is a first DNF, unfortunately, this season for him, and only his seventh race weekend. But certainly, each time you do it, each time you go through a home race, and we know, obviously, we’ve had Lewis for many years at Silverstone within the team as well, and it is a different mental approach, it is a different level of pressure that you put on yourself, and you have expectation of yourself as well. We just need to keep working to unload that pressure, unload that expectation, and just let him focus on the job, first and foremost, and put an environment and a structure around him that helps him do that in the best possible way.”
Low scene –
Russell: “Yeah, I think the fact is every team has a disastrous race weekend at some point. This is our first one of the season. Red Bull had a disastrous one in Bahrain. This is our sort of first one of the year. So, of course, I’m not very happy but your car isn’t going to be podium position week in, week out. That’s what we’ve been doing recently. There’s no excuses. It’s just the reality of F1. You had all these different tracks, different tyre compounds, different temperatures but it was definitely very underwhelming.”
Lord: “I think in general we’ve seen a performance improvement overall from the car in terms of its overall pace but that still remains our biggest limitation. This weekend is a slightly different thing to what we’ve seen at other races. [Though] it is tyre overheating, it’s more [that] you hit the top of the acceptable and usable window of the tyre quicker than other cars that seem able to run faster for longer before they’re either capped by the sort of upper end of the working range or simply don’t get there and are able to exploit their full pace for much longer. That’s what we’ve got to understand. It clearly is a continuation of a trend from last year, albeit there will be subtle differences in there as well. That’s the sort of high priority for us to understand and work on so that we can start racing as we have done at points this season and generally in slightly cooler conditions start racing in the same sort of neighborhood as we’re qualifying in.”
Here’s race start: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-emilia-romagna-grand-prix-verstappen-takes-the-lead-on-the-race-start-with-stunning-move-on-piastri.1832464325975929447
Here’s DNF for Andrea Kimi Antonelli: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-emilia-romagna-grand-prix-safety-car-out-as-antonelli-stops-out-on-track.1832469621716742762
