George Russell says Mercedes has proven it is “clearly back” and will be fighting for regular wins with its performance at the British Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton took victory at Silverstone after Russell’s win in Austria to give the team back-to-back successes and continuing an upturn in form. While the Austria result was aided by the top two colliding in that race, Silverstone saw Russell on pole ahead of Hamilton before he was forced to retire with a water system issue, but he says the overall performance level is confirmation of recent progress.
“It’s incredible,” Russell said. “We had the car in normal dry circumstances to be one-two. We’re clearly back and I think we’ll be fighting for race wins more often now.
“Within myself and the car I’m feeling good, but obviously this is a real blow retiring from any race, let alone your home grand prix and when you had the car to win. But we’ll have another go.”
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Russell was leading the early part of the race but had dropped behind Hamilton and the two McLaren drivers before his retirement, and he felt the race was going to come back to him before his exit.
“I knew it was going to be a long race and sort of wanted to be patient,” he said. “We were still in the fight but ten laps before the failure I knew I had problems. I was losing power.
“McLaren were super-fast during that period. It was difficult but I wasn’t too flustered because I knew the race was going to be long. Really surprised there was no Safety Cars, but I knew we had the pace in the car.”
With Hamilton winning his home race for a record ninth time, Russell says the result is just reward for the work the drivers have been doing with the team and he’s keen to see what it can achieve in Hungary and Belgium over the coming weeks.
“Congratulations to Lewis and the team though,” Russell said. “He drove a great race and it’s a fully deserved victory. We’ve both been pushing so hard to help the team develop the car and it’s great to see that paying off.
“The car felt so good. We knew it was going to be a long race with the weather conditions. When the rain first came down, we struggled a little. We were able to find our pace again though and it would have been an interesting battle to the end. Nevertheless, it’s been an amazing weekend for us as a team. We can be proud of what we’ve achieved and look forward to the final two races before the summer break with excitement.”