George Russell believes victory at the Austrian Grand Prix is a deserved reward for Mercedes’ progress this season, but admits he should have finished third.
Max Verstafen and Lando Norris, who were fighting for the win, collided and both drivers suffered punctures in the final 10 laps of the race, allowing Russell to take the lead and take the win ahead of Oscar Piastri. This win is only the second of Russell’s career, and he says it comes after Mercedes, which had only taken podiums so far, were clearly ahead.
“To be honest, it feels really good.” Russell said. “As a team, we really picked up steam in the last three races. I think Montreal was probably the win we missed and ended up taking P3. Today, of course, it was P3 and we took the win.
“It’s funny how this sport works. This is thanks to the hard work of all teams. There has been tremendous progress since the beginning of the year.
“The last few years have been very difficult for us as a team and we didn’t have high expectations for this weekend, but we qualified in P3 yesterday. We were in the mix and, as I said, we fought for the podium.
“I think realistically, we still have the third fastest car behind Red Bull and McLaren. Lewis in the last three races [Hamilton] I was in that P3 spot so we are making the most of it. Sometimes the race doesn’t go the way you want it to.”
After qualifying, Russell said he would let Norris and Verstappen battle it out and see how the race went on Sunday, with the Mercedes driver revealing the race engineer had already told him he had a chance of winning as the race was getting tighter towards the end.
“To be honest, I just tried to focus on maximizing my driving,” he said. “Marcus [Dudley], my engineer said 3 laps ago ‘they are fighting really hard and we can win this’. I said, ‘Look, we need to secure the P3 first. ‘Let me drive.’ I knew Oscar was behind.
“And when I got to the front, I knew the last six laps were going to be tough. My tyres were tough. That VSC helped a little bit because my tyres were overheating and I could just cool them down.
“Of course it’s a bit weird to win a race like this. But like I said, it’s racing. Sometimes it goes against you and you feel like we missed a chance to win or two. Montreal was definitely a win in Singapore. Last year things could have gone a little bit differently, but today we won. That’s how the cookie crumbles.”
