Mercedes

Russell started third but braked too late into Turn 1, causing his car to become a bit unsettled. This caused him to run wide and by the time he had rounded the posts he was back in seventh with front wing damage. An early stop for a new front wing cost him the lead, meaning he had to battle with Perez for the rest of the afternoon. As for Hamilton, he was in a bit of a no-man’s land. He lacked the pace to overtake the Ferraris and McLarens but still managed to finish comfortably ahead of his former rival Verstappen.

Lewis Hamilton, 5th

“We didn’t have the pace today to fight for more. The McLarens and Ferrari in particular were strong. I was able to keep up with Sainz, but I couldn’t do the longer stints and the one-stops that he could do. If we had started ahead of him, we might have been able to hold him off. But in the end, we needed a better balance with the car today to achieve much more.

“It’s a shame to come away from a weekend where we looked so strong and not be able to show more. We looked good in practice and qualifying but couldn’t quite match that today. The field is so tight now and it will be fascinating to see what happens in the coming races. We’ll keep working hard and hopefully we’ll have a stronger race in Baku in two weeks’ time.”

George Russel, 7th

“It was a frustrating day today. In the end we didn’t have the pace to fight for the podium, but my race went down in the first corner. It’s disappointing when that happens after all the effort the team has put in during the weekend. I had a good start, but got caught in the dirty air behind Piastri. I locked up to avoid him and suffered some damage to my front wing. That compromised my opening stint and we lost time in the pit stop because we had to change the wing ourselves.

“Our pace is not as strong as before the summer break, here or in Zandvoort. As a team we go away, put in the effort and find out why that is. Other teams seem to have made a step forward, so we will have to work hard to get back on track.”

Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport

“Congratulations to Ferrari and Charles Leclerc for a well-deserved win today. It’s always a special moment when the scarlet car wins here at Monza. Our own race was better than Zandvoort, but still not good. We completed the two-stop strategy because we had graining on the left front tyre, which made the one-stop unlikely. It was a difficult challenge to manage and it was difficult to know whether to commit to the one-stop or push harder and go for the two-stop. However, our pace today made it difficult to score much more than we did on both paths.

“We haven’t performed at the level we did before the summer break in the last two races. When you don’t have the speed, strategic decisions become difficult, as we saw today. We still have some time to analyse why that is the case for Baku and aim to come back stronger.”

Andrew Shovlin, Director of Trackside Engineering

“We didn’t have a strong race today. Before the Grand Prix we knew the tyres would be fragile and probably need some management to make long stints work. Unfortunately we didn’t have the speed to manage the tyres and keep up with our competitors in front of us.

“Lewis finished fifth after lap one and came home in the same position. We tried the two-stop strategy against Sainz, as it looked unlikely that we would be able to pass him on track. Unfortunately, we couldn’t overtake the Ferrari in the final stint. George, meanwhile, had a difficult first lap, having to swerve at Turn 1 and then breaking his front end at the second chicane, which led to an early and long stop. We could potentially have gained a place on Verstappen if we had committed to the one-stop, but in the end the damage on the opening lap was the biggest cost. It seems that we have lost some pace compared to our rivals since the summer break. We will investigate why this is the case and what we need to do to put in a more competitive performance in Baku.”