George Russell unable to answer 'major' question despite breakthrough Austria win

George Russell feels he is still unable to have full confidence in extracting full comfort from his Mercedes F1 car, despite a dominant Austrian GP performance.

From pole position, Russell led 57 of the 71 laps to record his seventh grand prix victory, and first since the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

The Mercedes driver also trimmed team-mate Kimi Antonelli's points advantage to 40 following the success, but Russell believes some underlying problems in his driving style are still present.

Throughout the weekend, Antonelli looked the faster Mercedes driver, until Russell roared to pole, with the Italian suffering a messy race start which hindered his progress forwards, including leaving the track three times by Turn 1 of Lap 2. 

The reasons for such a big turnaround in performance was something Russell did not have immediate answers for.

"I have a lot of confidence in myself, knowing I can do it. I have less confidence in being able to get everything aligned with the car, the set-up and the tyres, because it’s just been so up and down for me," Russell told media, including RacingNews365. 

"And even this weekend, at points I was six tenths behind Kimi, and then come Q3 I was two tenths ahead.

"I don’t honestly have a major answer for that. But those times where I managed to deliver the pole laps, the car and the tyres have felt more akin to last year, when I could deliver those performances every lap throughout a weekend. 

"It’s been a tough couple of months with some really tricky races, with races that felt like everything was going against me, then some races with some tough performances. 

"Obviously, I’ve got a really incredible team-mate next to me, who week in, week out is delivering some pretty spectacular performances. 

"So, for me, going into Canada, going into Barcelona from quite a low point, I needed a lot of resilience to be able to get back and deliver some strong performances.

"So, to get the last two poles, to get the win here this weekend, especially on a track which I don’t think is so suited to me, I’m really, really proud."