George Russell believes his victory within the Austrian Grand Prix is deserved reward for Mercedes’ progress this season however admits he ought to have completed third.
A collision between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris when combating for the win noticed each drivers choose up punctures throughout the remaining ten laps of the race, permitting Russell to take the lead and maintain off Oscar Piastri for victory. The win is barely Russell’s second of his profession, and he says it comes after a transparent step ahead from Mercedes that had to this point solely yielded podiums.
“It feels actually nice to be trustworthy,” Russell mentioned. “These final three races as a workforce, we’ve actually turned it up. I really feel that Montreal was in all probability a victory that we missed out on and we ended up ending P3. Immediately was a deserving P3 and we received the victory.
“It’s humorous how this sport turns round…credit score to all of the workforce for all of the exhausting work they’ve carried out. Such large progress because the begin of the yr.
“The final couple of years have been very tough for us as a workforce and we didn’t have excessive expectations going into this weekend, however we ended up qualifying P3 yesterday. We’ve been in that blend, and as I mentioned, we have been combating for the rostrum.
“I believe, realistically, we nonetheless in all probability have the third-quickest automotive behind Purple Bull and McLaren. The final three races, Lewis [Hamilton] and I’ve been in that P3 spot, so we’re actually getting probably the most out of it. Generally, racing, it goes your means.”
After qualifying, Russell mentioned he would let Norris and Verstappen struggle and see how the race performed out on Sunday, and the Mercedes driver revealed his race engineer had already knowledgeable him an opportunity of the win was potential given how aggressive the battle was turning into late on.
“I used to be simply attempting to deal with simply maximizing my driving, to be trustworthy,” he mentioned. “Marcus [Dudley], my engineer, mentioned three laps earlier than, ‘They’re combating actually exhausting and we will win this.’ I mentioned, ‘Look, we have to kind of safe P3 first; let me drive.’ I knew Oscar was quick behind.
“Then after I received into the lead, I knew it was going to be a difficult final six laps. My tires have been tough. That VSC helped marginally as a result of my tires have been overheating and that simply allowed me to chill them down.
“It’s a little bit of a wierd one to win a race like this, for positive. However as I mentioned, it’s racing. Generally it goes towards you and I really feel like we’ve in all probability missed out on one or two potentialities of victories. Montreal was received, arguably Singapore, issues might have gone very barely in another way final yr, and right now it went for us. It’s how the cookie crumbles.”
