"They’ve got a bit more of a locker to play with"- Ferrari way ahead of Mercedes and Red Bull in 'deployment' at F1 Italian GP, says George Russell

The 2022 F1 Italian GP practice sessions saw George Russell struggle with the ERS deployment. During FP2, Russell informed Mercedes about his issues with deploying electrical energy from the hybrid system. Though it was a blip he faced during the session, he believes that Mercedes are falling short in that aspect. Mercedes' energy deployment system runs out of power boosts too early and is not suited for the straights of Monza.

George Russell is more worried about Ferrari's deployment in Monza and says the Scuderia have the upper hand. He feels Mercedes are still very similar to Red Bull in this aspect, so Ferrari are the ones they are going to have to learn how to tackle.

Russell, when asked about the impact this blip would have on the weekend, replied:

“Both, to be honest. It was a blip during the session, which made things worse, but generally speaking we are lacking a bit of deployment.

“I think we are similar to Red Bull, but Ferrari seemed to have the upper hand in terms of deployment. So that may make things trickier in a race scenario as they’ve got a bit more of a locker to play with. So it’s something we’ll have to deal with.”

George Russell feels Mercedes have really fallen back after Zandvoort because now it's not only Red Bull and Ferrari who are leading the pace in front of them but also McLaren who beat both Mercedes in FP2. Russell and Hamilton are also going to have to make do with the ;W13' which has been giving them trouble. On being asked about the same, Russell said:

“I think we’ll have to deal with it. It was a bit of a strange day, FP1 was looking pretty strong, but then Ferrari and Red Bull have seemingly taken a step forward compared to us, or maybe we’ve taken a step back because we were obviously behind a McLaren in FP2. So a bit of work to be done tonight to understand that.”

Either way, this could turn out to be a good weekend for George Russell if he can capitalize on this opportunity, considering that Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez have all been imposed with grid penalties for power unit changes.

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Mercedes will not go for a 'high risk, high reward' tactic according to George Russell

Hamilton will be starting from the back of the grid at Monza and it's possible Mercedes might choose to sacrifice his race if required, in order to help George Russell gain a higher front spot. Hamilton doesn't necessarily need to maximize on all the tenths so Russell could look to gain a few using Hamilton's compensation.

But George Russell feels there is also a very high chance of getting the towing strategy wrong and that won't be worth it. He said that will not be Mercedes' focus for the weekend:

“If you nail it, it definitely does work, but there’s high-risk high-reward really,” said Russell. “So it’s not something we are putting a lot of emphasis into.

“Qualifying sessions are the time when we learn quite a lot about the car, the tyres, and that’s clearly been somewhere we’ve struggled this year. So for now, I think we’ll both just go in and do an ordinary session.”

It will be interesting to see George Russell and Mercedes' approach for the upcoming race in Monza.