George Russell said Ferrari’s strong pace in Monaco on Friday showed it “wasn’t just chat” when he named them pre-race favourites.
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The two SF-26s topped both practice sessions on Friday in Monaco. Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time in the second session with a lap of 1’13.026, 0.379 seconds ahead of Russell.
“We expected Ferrari to be the team to beat,” Russell said. “A lot of people thought that was just chat, but clearly they are the team to beat.”
Russell finished Friday fourth on the timesheets behind both Ferraris and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. “Red Bull have also been a bit of a surprise for us,” he added.
“We knew of all the races so far this would be our most challenging. It’s probably been slightly more difficult than we hoped.
“We did make good improvements from FP1 to FP2. We need to make the same step again overnight — I don’t think we nailed it today. There’s room to improve, but Ferrari are definitely the team to beat.”
Ferrari won the Monaco Grand Prix in 2024 and Charles Leclerc finished second to McLaren’s Lando Norris last year. Russell believes Ferrari’s design philosophy suits the unusually slow circuit and its steep, heavily cambered corners.
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“The trends we see from Ferrari here and on other street tracks have been consistent for about a decade,” he said. “Every car has a certain DNA.
“Their DNA, especially on the mechanical side, clearly works well on these street circuits — particularly where there’s a lot of warping in the corners and the surface drops away.
“We’re doing everything we can to make improvements and I do think we can close the gap. Whether we can overcome it completely, I’m not sure.”
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