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George Russell Tops Monza Practice Ahead of Italian GP
George Russell lit up Monza on Friday, topping second practice and planting Mercedes firmly at the sharp end heading into a pivotal Saturday at the Italian Grand Prix.
The Briton punched in a 1:19.***-spec lap good enough to edge Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc by 0.120s in FP2, with championship leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli slotting into third as Mercedes and Ferrari traded blows around the Temple of Speed. Lando Norris, winner of the last two grands prix and very much the form man of the field, ended the session fourth for McLaren ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Oscar Piastri.
For the tifosi, it was a familiar tease: a scarlet car within touching distance of the top, Leclerc hunting Russell’s benchmark, Ferrari looking lean on low fuel. For Mercedes, it was something more – a statement that their low-drag package has teeth on a circuit that exposes any weakness in power, efficiency or braking.
Behind them, the story turned darker red and blue. Antonelli may be third on the timesheets, but his Sunday is already compromised. An engine change means the Mercedes prodigy is locked into a back-of-the-grid start regardless of how spectacular his qualifying lap might be. He can attack on Saturday, but he knows the real damage must come in race trim, carving through the pack on a day when every slipstream counts.
Max Verstappen, by contrast, spent his Friday hunting a car that refused to come to him. Ninth for the Red Bull driver was the headline, but the real tale lay in the radio chatter and set-up tweaks as he chased balance and confidence on the brakes. At Monza, those two things are non-negotiable. Lose them, and you lose lap time by the handful.
A Saturday built for specialists
Monza strips Formula 1 down to the essentials. Long straights. Brutal braking zones. Skinny wings. Drivers live in the 300km/h-plus window, then stamp on the pedal and trust the car will stop dead-straight. Any wobble, any instability, and the lap is gone before the apex arrives.
Saturday will amplify all of that. Final practice at 12:30pm local time offers one last chance to tune the cars for qualifying, which begins at 4:00pm CEST. Teams will spend FP3 threading the needle between straightline speed and enough downforce to survive the chicanes, while drivers haggle over slipstreams and track position.
At Monza, timing the tow can turn a good lap into a great one. Leave the pits in the wrong place, get caught in traffic, or misjudge the gap to the car ahead, and the lap unravels. Expect tempers, radio complaints, and late shuffles at the end of Q1 and Q2 as the field bunches for one last run.
For fans planning to follow every minute, the schedule is clear:
- Free practice 3: Saturday, 12:30pm CEST (11:30am BST / 6:30am ET)
- Qualifying: Saturday, 4:00pm CEST (3:00pm BST / 10:00am ET)
The race itself fires up on Sunday at 3:00pm CEST, but the grid – and perhaps the narrative of the championship – will be shaped long before then.
Where to watch the Italian GP
The 2026 broadcast landscape has its own shake-up. In the United Kingdom, Sky Sports remains the exclusive live home of Formula 1, showing every session of the Italian GP weekend, with streaming options via Sky Go and NOW and highlights still available free-to-air on Channel 4.
Across the Atlantic, the United States leans on Apple TV as the primary broadcast partner for the season, with every session of Monza’s action carried on the platform under a multi-year deal. F1 TV continues to serve as the series’ global subscription service for those wanting direct coverage.
Heat, tyres and the long game
If the lap times looked sharp on Friday, the thermometer looked even sharper. Monza baked in the heat, and Saturday promises more of the same, with temperatures set to climb into the mid-30s Celsius and only scattered cloud to break the glare.
That kind of heat turns tyre preparation into an art form. Get the rubber too hot too early and the grip vanishes in the final sector. Keep it too cool and you never switch the tyres on. Teams will be obsessing over out-laps, tow lengths and brake warm-up, trying to hit the sweet spot just as the driver barrels into Turn 1.
Cooling will be another quiet battleground. With low-drag bodywork and tight packaging, keeping engines, batteries and brakes within their working windows is a constant juggling act. Brake management, in particular, could decide who can attack lap after lap in qualifying and who has to back off when it matters most.
Sunday’s forecast keeps everyone honest: still hot, with the threat of a passing shower. Not enough to plan for a wet race, but enough to force strategists to keep one eye on the radar and one on the pit wall.
The Temple of Speed, stripped bare
On paper, Monza is simple. A permanent road course in Monza, Italy. Free practice 1 and 2 on Friday, free practice 3 and qualifying on Saturday, the Italian Grand Prix itself on Sunday. In reality, it’s one of the most unforgiving venues on the calendar.
Low downforce setups mean cars dance on the edge under braking into the Rettifilo and Roggia chicanes. Drivers lean on every centimetre of kerb at the Lesmos and ride the knife-edge through Ascari. Any mistake is magnified because there’s nowhere to hide. You’re flat out, or you’re nowhere.
This weekend’s field carries its own twists. Isack Hadjar is sidelined by injury, with Liam Lawson stepping into the Red Bull seat and Yuki Tsunoda moving across to Racing Bulls. It adds another layer of intrigue to a grid already stacked with storylines: Hamilton now in Ferrari red, Norris on a winning streak, Antonelli shouldering the weight of expectation at Mercedes, and Verstappen searching for rhythm at a track that has given him both glory and grief.
Friday’s photographs told their own story. Hamilton in Ferrari colours in front of the Italian fans. Leclerc threading the scarlet car through the chicanes. Norris and Piastri hustling the McLaren in low-drag trim. Lawson back in the paddock, Racing Bulls branding on his overalls. Established names like Fernando Alonso, Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez grinding through long runs while rookies and rising stars like Oliver Bearman, Paul Aron, Gabriel Bortoleto and Arvid Lindblad logged their laps.
All of it builds to Saturday, when the stopwatch strips away the noise and leaves only pace.
Russell has thrown down the first marker. Ferrari have answered. McLaren lurk. Verstappen is wounded, but never to be written off. And somewhere in the shadows of the back row, Antonelli knows that whatever the grid says, Monza might yet be the race that defines his season.
