Russell admits he’s ‘still gaining confidence of how to get the car in the sweet spot' ahead of home race

George Russell has conceded that while he has faith in his own abilities, he’s still not entirely comfortable with Mercedes’ 2026 challenger and is looking to “gain confidence of how to get the car in the sweet spot” at the British Grand Prix.

The 28-year-old has come out the other side of a poor run of form that saw him retire from the Canadian Grand Prix and fail to score in Monaco, finally returning to the top step of the podium with a hard-fought victory at the Red Bull Ring.

It marked his first race win since the season opener in Australia and helped him reclaim P2 in the standings, 40 points adrift of his team mate Kimi Antonelli – who found a rhythm with his W17 early on and has triumphed five times so far.

Hoping that the Austrian Grand Prix was a turning point, Russell said on media day: “The game plan [in Great Britain] is just to be as fast as possible. I think I've got 100% confidence in myself but I'm still gaining confidence of how to get the car in the sweet spot.

“Last year, if you were to ask me ahead of a session how confident are you that the car is going to be in a good place and you're going to nail the lap, that confidence level was far higher because I understood the car and tyres much more than I do this year but it's improving every race I do.

“I think Austria, historically, was a tough track for me – it was a hot race and I had low grip. They're the sort of conditions I usually hate.

“My performance wasn't perfect, wasn't great, but it was substantially better than if that race was three or four races before. Really pleased with the progress I've made with my team to get the car set up in a better place.”

Reliability problems in Canada and the revelation that his driving style doesn't quite align with the current car have caused Russell to lose ground to his team mate, but a podium in Barcelona-Catalunya and the strong result in Austria have given him a much-needed boost.

“The last two weeks I think have been a couple of weeks where I've learnt a huge amount from what I need of the car,” he explained.

“This has been really great to sort of see what I need, how I need to change maybe my driving style, put it into practice and then win the race at the first time of trying this new approach was really great. To win was good, a good step forward and now I can feel to build from there.”

Russell’s next opportunity comes at his home race at Silverstone, a track where he is yet to win, but the Briton insisted he wanted to treat it like any other weekend and avoid the added stress of performing well in front of a home crowd.

He said: “For sure I want to tick the box but I'm not allowing it to give me any more pressure or be any more relaxed. There's so many fans that give you a lot of energy and excitement through the weekend but when the helmet is on, it's business as usual.

“This was my first F1 race when I was 10 years old so it's always really special to come here.”