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 preventing for the win noticed each drivers choose up punctures throughout the last ten laps of the race, permitting Russell to take the lead and maintain off Oscar Piastri for victory. The win is just Russell’s second of his profession, and he says it comes after a transparent step ahead from Mercedes that had to date solely yielded podiums.
“It feels actually nice to be sincere,” Russell mentioned. “These final three races as a group, we’ve actually turned it up. I really feel that Montreal was most likely a victory that we missed out on and we ended up ending P3. At present was a deserving P3 and we obtained the victory.
“It’s humorous how this sport turns round…credit score to all of the group for all of the laborious 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 group 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 had been preventing for the rostrum.
“I believe, realistically, we nonetheless most likely have the third-quickest automobile behind Pink Bull and McLaren. The final three races, Lewis [Hamilton] and I’ve been in that P3 spot, so we’re actually getting essentially the most out of it. Generally, racing, it goes your manner.”
After qualifying, Russell mentioned he would let Norris and Verstappen combat 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 doable given how aggressive the battle was turning into late on.
“I used to be simply attempting to give attention to simply maximizing my driving, to be sincere,” he mentioned. “Marcus [Dudley], my engineer, mentioned three laps earlier than, ‘They’re preventing actually laborious and we are able to 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 obtained into the lead, I knew it was going to be a difficult final six laps. My tires had been tough. That VSC helped marginally as a result of my tires had 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 certain. However as I mentioned, it’s racing. Generally it goes towards you and I really feel like we’ve most likely missed out on one or two prospects of victories. Montreal was gained, arguably Singapore, issues may have gone very barely otherwise final yr, and right this moment it went for us. It’s how the cookie crumbles.”
