George Russell: The car was damaged.

      In the sprint qualifying, the Mercedes drivers did not reach the final – Kimi Antonelli was eliminated in the first session, George Russell in the second...

      George Russell (13th): "The speed during practice was decent, but the sprint qualifying didn't go well. In the first part of qualifying, I ran onto the gravel where Kimi went off. The rest of the lap felt terrible, and it was the same in the second session. We saw that the car was damaged; we need to find out if that's the reason we didn't progress further. The exit in the second part of qualifying shocked everyone, but we were definitely slower. I'm sure there are reasons for that."

      Kimi Antonelli (20th): "It's very unfortunate that sprint qualifying ended for me this way. The car was fast during practice, and I managed an even better first half of the fast lap in qualifying, but then I over-pressed the accelerator in Turn 14 and spun into the gravel. As a result, the car was damaged, and despite giving my best on the second lap, I couldn't improve my time. It's very disappointing; we had a chance to achieve more today. That's my mistake, and now we'll focus on preparing the car for tomorrow's qualifying."