George Russell landed a heavy early blow at Monza, topping second practice for the Italian Grand Prix as Mercedes hit back at Ferrari on their home asphalt.
On a scorching afternoon at the Temple of Speed, with the tifosi expecting another red-washed weekend after Ferrari’s early dominance, it was the Briton who ripped up the script. Russell’s 1:22.559 put him 0.120s clear of Charles Leclerc and 0.141s ahead of championship leader Kimi Antonelli, a statement lap at a circuit where he suddenly has far more at stake than just a good grid slot.
Russell pounces as Mercedes answer Ferrari
Ferrari had set the tone in opening practice, first and second on the timesheets with their upgraded engine and a car that looked perfectly at ease in the long straights and brutal braking zones. The heat, the crowd, the upgrades – all of it pointed toward a Ferrari Friday.
Then Russell went quicker than both of them.
Mercedes dialled in the W15 as track temperatures soared, and Russell found the sweet spot. His lap was sharp, aggressive, and clean in the chicanes where so much time is won or lost at Monza. While Leclerc later spun and ran straight on at the first chicane, Russell kept his session tidy and efficient, banking the kind of lap that gives a driver real authority heading into Saturday.
For a man staring at a 59-point deficit to Antonelli, this weekend matters. A lot. Antonelli will start from the back of Sunday’s 22-car grid after engine-change penalties, leaving Russell staring at the rarest of things in modern F1: an open door in a title fight.
As Martin Brundle put it, this is Russell’s big chance to close that gap and show he belongs in the championship conversation, not just as a supporting act. The last thing he wants is to spend the final phase of the season playing bodyguard for Antonelli if McLaren or Ferrari launch a late assault on the Italian’s lead. These next few races will define how that dynamic plays out.
Ferrari quick, but with work to do
Leclerc still looked fast, the Ferrari lively under him, but the late spin and the earlier excursion at the first chicane underlined how close to the edge he was pushing. The raw pace is there; the polish is not, at least not yet.
Antonelli, by contrast, approached Friday with an entirely different brief. With his race already compromised by those penalties, Ferrari loaded his programme towards long-run work. Less about headline times, more about Sunday survival and damage limitation.
“It was a bit weird – not going to lie,” Antonelli admitted of the unusual focus on heavy-fuel running. He spent much of the afternoon in traffic, learning the slipstream games and deployment tricks that Monza always demands. The Italian talked about watching where rivals were using their hybrid energy, how they attacked and defended, and what that meant for his own race approach.
Monza offers overtaking chances that most circuits can’t. Antonelli knows it. If he’s going to salvage this weekend from the back row, he’ll need every scrap of information he gathered from those long runs in dirty air.
McLaren’s streak under threat
Lando Norris arrived in Italy on the back of two straight wins, but Monza was always going to be a sterner test for McLaren. The car that danced through high-speed corners elsewhere now faces a track dominated by straights and slow chicanes, where top speed and traction rule.
Even so, Norris still hustled his way to fourth, 0.384s off Russell, with Oscar Piastri a tenth further back in sixth. It wasn’t the kind of ominous pace that has defined McLaren’s recent charge, but it was solid enough to keep them firmly in the mix if Ferrari or Mercedes stumble.
If Monza does blunt McLaren’s edge, this is exactly the sort of weekend Russell needs to exploit. The opportunity is there; the question is whether Mercedes can keep this level through qualifying and the race.
Hamilton slips back, Verstappen struggles
Lewis Hamilton, second in the earlier session, couldn’t quite live with the front-runners in FP2. He dropped to fifth, behind Norris, as Mercedes split their approaches and explored set-up options.
Hamilton’s afternoon also carried a flashpoint. The world champion raged over what he called “dangerous” driving by Lance Stroll after being forced off at the first chicane. The stewards will look at that incident after the session, a sideshow in the timesheets but a reminder of how fraught the braking zones at Monza can become once 22 cars start fighting for the same piece of tarmac.
Max Verstappen, back in the Red Bull after rookie Ayumu Iwasa ran FP1, cut a frustrated figure. Unhappy with the balance of his RB22, he could do no better than ninth. On a day when others found rhythm, Red Bull looked out of step. Liam Lawson, standing in on the other side of the garage, finished 12th.
The quickest Red Bull-owned car? Not Verstappen, not Lawson, but Racing Bulls’ Arvid Lindblad in seventh, just ahead of Haas’ Oliver Bearman in an upgraded VF-26 that hinted at genuine progress for the American team.
Antonelli’s fightback and Russell’s opening
Antonelli’s situation is clear. He will likely start from the back row. His Friday was about tyre life, race pace, and learning how to attack in traffic at a circuit where the slipstream can turn a midfield car into a weapon.
“It’s a track where you can do so many different things,” he said, intrigued by the different deployment patterns and lines he studied from behind rivals. It was a methodical, almost studious day for a driver who knows his Sunday will be about patience, timing, and survival as much as speed.
Russell’s situation is just as clear, but in a very different way.
He has clean air in front of him in the title picture for the first time in weeks. A fast car. A teammate starting at the back. A track where overtaking is possible, but control from the front is still king. He hasn’t stood on the top step since Austria five races ago. He hasn’t had a better chance than this to drag himself back into a championship he refuses to treat as settled.
On a searing Friday at Monza, he did the one thing he absolutely had to do.
He put his name at the top of the timesheets – and put everyone else on notice.
