Russell admits he wasn’t taking Gasly Monza pole threat seriously

George Russell said he wasn’t taking the threat from Pierre Gasly in qualifying seriously before the Alpine driver took his first pole position at the Italian Grand Prix.

Gasly was in the mix at the top of the times throughout qualifying and was third quickest after the first runs of Q3, within a tenth of a second of Russell’s benchmark. With many drivers struggling to improve on their final attempts, Gasly went 0.06s faster than Russell to secure his first career Formula 1 pole in a result that shocked the Mercedes driver.

“Firstly, massive congrats to Pierre because that’s an incredible performance,” Russell said. “We were actually finishing a game of chess about 15 minutes before qualifying and he beat me there, and I thought, ‘Well, I think I’ll beat you in qualifying,’ and here we are – he’s ahead of me again. So huge congrats to him.

“Of course, I was disappointed not to get the pole position. It was a bit messy with [Max] Verstappen opening the lap. I did the lap very close, but Pierre and Alpine have been super-fast even from Q1. So, happy to see them get a good result.

“They’ve looked strong the whole weekend, but we’ve often seen in Q1 some midfield teams have competitive laps, and you’ve seen it with VCARB [Racing Bulls] a few times where they’ve been sort of top three at the beginning of a session, and I didn’t think too much of it. I just thought they looked fast.

“Pierre clearly did a great job in Q1, but, no, to be totally honest, I don’t think we thought they were in the fight. And it goes to show what a great job he did and their team to get the pole, and one of the few drivers to improve on that last lap. Pretty impressive.”

Russell says Verstappen impacted his own session by chasing the tow on offer from Kimi Antonelli – who was taking a grid penalty – but he is confident in his race chances.

“It was a very scrappy session. I didn’t feel quite as good with the car as I did in FP3. I was struggling with locking up and then, come Q3, we had a bit of a mess with Verstappen entering the lap. He wanted to go for the tow, Kimi was there as well, and I did my lap a second and a half behind Max, which wasn’t ideal.

“It takes nothing away from what Pierre achieved because they were flying all day – quickest in Q1 and right up there from the beginning. So I’m happy for Pierre and, of course, disappointed we weren’t on pole ourselves. However, great place to start for tomorrow.

“[I’m] definitely in with a shot of the win. It’s going to be an interesting fight with Pierre as well. I think they’ve got a car that’s got some good straight-line speed, which will be nice for them in the race. I don’t really know where the fight is tomorrow, but confident I’ve got the pace to go for the win.”