George Russell was pleased to come home a distant fifth after coming out as the victor in his battle with Lando Norris.

Although it appeared to be a quiet day at the office, Russell had to fight for fifth place, and he succeeded in his quest to be the best of the non-Red Bull-Ferrari runners after passing Lando Norris on the pit exit. But from then on, Russell endured a quiet day at the office as he couldn’t catch the leading quartet. 

“Yeah, it was a positive race on the hard tyre; we were the quickest car on track at some point, and we were really pushing the limits, and that was very enjoyable. I didn’t show my overtake on Lando, which was a bit disappointing; he sort of came out of the pits directly in front of me, and he chopped across, and I managed to overtake him, so that’s pretty nice, and we managed it until the end it was not easy on those tyres.”

The 79th running of the Monaco Grand Prix was marred by two red flags, one caused by poor weather that delayed the official start of the race by just under an hour. The second was caused by Mick Schumacher’s heavy accident at the Swimming Pool section splitting the young German’s Haas in two and ending all chance of the race completing the full distance.

Although he initially questioned why there was a red flag just before the official start of the race, Russell said in a post-race media session in which Motorlat were present at that he understood why race director Eduardo Freitas called a halt to proceedings, arguing that things could have ended in disaster if they had started in the wet conditions.

“It was frustrating from within the car, but when you saw the weather that came, I thought it was the right decision. That first attempt during the race it was too dangerous and too wet, and it would just have been chaotic. I don’t know why they’re was a second red flag, but nevertheless, that’s how the game goes around a place like Monaco.”