George Russell looked and sounded utterly deflated at the prospect of starting the 2025 Monaco Grand Prix from well outside the top 10. Even the unpredictability of the first mandated two-stop Monaco F1 race couldn't lift his spirits.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff called it an "abysmal" qualifying session, with Kimi Antonelli limited to 15th place thanks to tagging the inside barrier at the Nouvelle chicane in Q1, before Russell's car conked out early in Q2 with a suspected electrical problem after riding a bump Russell curtly pointed out had "been there all weekend".
In truth Mercedes looked in bad shape after FP3, still struggling to make the top 10 after what Russell called the team's "slowest Friday of the season".
But Russell felt "back in the game" from the first laps in Q1 and felt sure he "would have been in the top four" without the engine suddenly shutting down on him in Q2, leaving him only 14th.
"It was clicking in Q1 and we were one of the few drivers not to take the new tyres," Russell said.
"I did one corner in Q2 and I was already almost two tenths up, and already that would have been plenty enough to be into Q3 with two sets [of tyres left over].
"We had the two hard tyres [to take into the race]. We had a real chance this weekend, but now it's up in smoke and weekend over. So it's pretty deflating."
Russell concedes that carrying those two sets of hard compound C4 Pirellis into the race represents a "small advantage" for him in terms of strategic flexibility, but he isn't anticipating the sort of chaos some have predicted will come from the mandatory two-stop rules.
No strategy plans
And he admitted Mercedes hasn't prepared "any strategy plans" for this scenario because the team expected both cars to qualify much higher up than 14th and 15th.
"There's going to be some crazy strategies, but we qualified 14th - we probably should have been in the top five, so there's 10 cars between me and where we should have been," Russell added.
"And if people are doing crazy things with the strategy, half of those guys will go one way, the other half will go the other way - therefore, whichever one we decide we're still stuck behind five drivers.
"You're going to see one of two things: people pitting on lap one, or people going really long into the race, so we do have a small advantage with the two hard tyres - but if you can't pass, there's not much you can do.
"We will probably choose…as soon as we know what tyres teams have started on, if they start on the C6 you know they are going for a very early one; if everybody starts on a hard tyre, you know they're intending to go longer.
"So as soon as we see what they're on, we'll make that choice."
Antonelli left kicking himself
Antonelli had done enough to get through to Q2 before causing a red flag that truncated Q1 with his crash.
"It was an unnecessary mistake because I think I was already through by then," he replied when asked by The Race how he thought his lap had been going.
"I glanced the wall on the left and I just couldn't turn on the right. I think I damaged the front left. I lost pressure from the front left and then I just had no turning.
"The car was definitely feeling better in qualifying and I was trying to get into the rhythm and it's just a shame to finish off like this because today is definitely all on me."
