Productive start to Monaco Grand Prix for George
George ends Friday practice in P6 ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix.
Taking to the historic Monaco track for the first time this weekend, George set his benchmark lap time of 1.21.158 on a set of Hard Pirelli tyres.
Improving on his previous lap time, George moved into P10 before a red flag for Mick Schumacher paused all track action.
As the session resumed and the track continued to evolve, George put in his best lap time of 1.15.211 to end the first session in P8.
In FP2, George quickly took to the track on a set of Medium tyres to place himself into P4 on the timings with a 1.17.071.
An early red flag due to a crash for Daniel Ricciardo halted the session for the second time of the day.
With 35 minutes remaining on the clock, the session resumed, and George returned to the track, improving into P3.
For his final run, George switched onto the Soft tyres, setting his fastest lap time of the day with a 1.13.406 to end the day in P6.
George Russell – Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One™ Team Driver
It's been a relatively good day I think but it's clear we're not yet where we want to be in terms of performance. Monaco is a very tricky circuit with these cars - they are set up very stiff for the aero to work, so it's not easy to put the car on the limit on a bumpy street circuit like this. You've got to give the circuit a little bit more respect than you normally would, and there are parts of the circuit where we're almost doing a wheelie with both front tyres off the ground! We've got some work to do overnight to see how we can make it a bit easier to drive.
At the front, Ferrari are flourishing again - we saw in Imola how good they were over the kerbs, and this is playing to their strength here, too. We now need to get our heads down and see what we can do for tomorrow, so that we're at least best of the rest behind Ferrari and Red Bull.