George Russell finishes P7 in Sunday's Emilia Romagna Grand Prix with Kimi Antonelli unfortunately retiring following a loss of throttle control.

Both drivers opted for a different strategy for Sunday's race; George starting on the used Medium compound he set his Q3 time on in P3, with Kimi on the Hard tyre in P13.

After a strong start, both drivers were limited by rear overheating and struggled to keep the advantage. That necessitated an early stop for George who pitted for the Hard compound on lap 11, switching to the less optimal two-stop strategy.

A mid-race Virtual Safety Car saw both drivers take the opportunity to stop, with George and Kimi fitting the Hard compound. That left our duo outside of the top five respectively before the Safety Car was deployed with Kimi unfortunately having to retire. Green flag racing resumed with 10 laps remaining and George fought hard on old tyres to secure P7.

Following a difficult day for the team, we can bounce back straight away as we head to Monaco for the second Grand Prix in this European triple-header.

George Russell: Today was challenging and, obviously, P7 is not where we want to be. I struggled with the rear end of the car from the beginning and was not able to get into a good rhythm. With a relatively high track temperature, we were suffering from overheating on the rear axle. It was therefore tough to keep the tyres in the right window and the pace reflected that. We couldn't match the leaders' pace, so it was very much damage limitation.

We will take the learnings from this weekend and move quickly on to Monaco. I am looking forward to getting out on track there. We've been good and consistent in qualifying this season with strong single laps and this will help next week. Monaco is one of these races where a lot depends on Saturday and I am confident in how we can perform there.

Kimi Antonelli: Today was a disappointing way to end my first home Grand Prix. You never want to have a DNF but for it to come here at Imola is even more bitter. That said, I will treasure the memory of this weekend. The support from the fans has been incredible. They kept cheering for me each and every lap, despite the struggles with our performance.

Sadly, we just didn't have the pace to fight for the top five today. I made a good start despite being on the Hard compound, but the speed in the car wasn't there to move forward after that. I defended really hard in that first stint and managed to keep Lewis (Hamilton) behind me. We took advantage of the Virtual Safety Car to make our stop but after that, I started to have an issue with the throttle. I started to lose power on the straights and every lap it was getting worse before we had to retire the car. We have the opportunity to bounce back straight away in Monaco so we will take the learnings from here and apply them to next weekend.

Bradley Lord, Team Representative: That was comfortably our most difficult Grand Prix of the season so far. To come away with P7 and a DNF is far below the standards we set ourselves as a team.

From the early laps, George reported a lack of rear stability, and he struggled to keep the rear tyre temperatures under control, which led to accelerated degradation. This forced us into an early stop, and onto a two-stop strategy. He made his second stop under the VSC for Esteban's retirement, and had battled his way back into the points when the Safety Car was called out for Kimi's DNF. It was clear that we would remain on track during this, and George then battled hard to the flag - he was unable to hold off Lewis's fresher-tyred Ferrari behind but then was able to hold position to the finish.

For Kimi, we ran an offset strategy, starting on the hard tyre and making up a position at the start. He was running solidly when we took advantage of the VSC to swap to the Medium tyre and tried to take this to the finish. Kimi managed the stint well but then began to suffer a degrading throttle problem, which ultimately stopped the car on lap 45 - the first retirement of his F1 career.

Overall, the performance picture was a sobering one today: while George qualified strongly, we were unable to race the cars around us and suffered a significant pace limitation from tyre overheating on the rear axle. The primary focus of work in the days ahead to understand why we suffered so badly, and then to make the most of the opportunity we have to bounce back next weekend in Monaco.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director: Today was a difficult day for the team and drivers. We were not quick enough to challenge at the front and, to make matters worse, suffered a reliability failure.

We're working to understand the issues on Kimi's car, but the throttle pedal was gradually deteriorating and eventually the system switched off for safety. That problem is unlikely to be too challenging to solve in time for Monaco thankfully.

Our bigger concern is around the pace. It's been another hot race, and we were giving the rear tyres too much of a hard time. We therefore suffered from poor grip and degradation throughout. We've got to get on top of that quickly as there are a lot of hot races coming up and we can't continue to perform at this level. We've got a few days to regroup before Monaco, but we'll be working hard to try and improve from here.

Check out our Sunday gallery from Imola here.