George Russell left puzzled by Max Verstappen: 'It's difficult to understand'

George Russell has conceded it is difficult to understand F1's current pecking order following Max Verstappen's dominant win at Monza on Sunday.

The Dutchman commanded the race from start to finish, converting his pole position into a 19-second win ahead of Lando Norris.

It marked a rare occurrence this year that McLaren was beaten on race day after winning 12 out of the 15 races that preceded the Italian Grand Prix.

Russell detailed that it is difficult to draw any conclusions over the current pecking order, as he also highlighted Mercedes' deficit to championship leaders McLaren was smaller than usual.

“It’s difficult to understand the sport at the moment,” Russell told the media, including RacingNews365.

“When you look at Verstappen finishing 40 seconds off the win in Hungary and then winning by 20 seconds here, I struggle to comprehend that swing of performance.

“We finished 12 seconds behind McLaren in a normal race. That's a pretty successful race.

“Ferrari is strong right now, and Saturdays are really close as well. So one-tenth faster or one-tenth slower on Saturday can be one or two positions on a Sunday.”

Russell ended Sunday's race in fifth place, having been unable to maintain his early-race pressure on Ferrari's Charles Leclerc.

The Briton acknowledged it was the maximum result he could have hoped for.

“It was quite fun at the beginning, trying to get past Charles,” Russell reflected. 

“They just had substantially more speed in the straight than us, which made it pretty challenging. From then on, P5 was the maximum.”