George Russell: Ferrari's speed is impressive
George Russell missed media duties on Thursday in Baku due to ill health, and during Friday’s practice sessions it was clear over the radio that the Mercedes driver had a bad cold. Nevertheless, he completed the planned programme, posting the third-fastest time, after which he went to the hotel to recover before Saturday’s qualifying. Kimi Antonelli confirmed Mercedes’ pace, finishing just 0.009 seconds behind his team-mate.
George Russell (3rd): “An encouraging Friday in Azerbaijan for our team. Today we decided to run the whole programme only on Soft tyres, so judging our strengths and weaknesses is a bit harder than usual.
Baku is a long lap, and the rears usually take a lot of load, especially in the final sector. Because we are using softer compounds this year, we knew the C6 would struggle to remain effective over an entire lap. Nevertheless, I finished both sessions in the top four, but we know there is still more pace to find.
For the rest of the weekend we will use all our sets of C5, and I hope that will give us an advantage over some rivals.
Right now I’m looking forward to getting some rest overnight so I can be back to 100% and deliver a strong showing over the remaining days of the weekend. We know the fight with our rivals will be tight again — Ferrari’s pace is impressive, and McLaren haven’t yet shown all their cards. If we can build on today’s form, there will be no reason why we can’t fight for a podium in the race.”
Kimi Antonelli (4th): “A pretty positive day. On a street circuit you need to gradually increase the pace and build confidence — that’s what I focused on today.
In the first session we lost a lot of time due to a stoppage, but in the second the car handled well and I was able to move up to fourth. There’s still a lot to do, but today we laid the foundations for the work over the rest of the weekend.
Our realistic target is to fight for a podium on Sunday. McLaren haven’t yet shown all their speed, and Ferrari were quick on Soft and Medium compounds, so we should be cautious in our predictions.
Today we only worked on the Soft tyres, and I hope that will help us in the remaining days of the weekend. It will be tough to adapt to the other compounds when we put them on the car for the first time, but we’re confident this is the right approach.”
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George Russell: Ferrari's speed is impressive
George Russell missed media duties on Thursday in Baku due to ill health, and during Friday practice radio transmissions it was clear the Mercedes driver had a bad cold. Nevertheless, he completed his scheduled program, posting the third-fastest time.