George Russell left sweating over ‘surprise’ issue despite Austria win | F1 | Sport

George Russell said it was “incredible” to win a Grand Prix for the first time since the opening weekend of the season. But the Brit admitted Max Verstappen made him sweat in sizzling Spielberg on Sunday. He started on pole and only ever lost the lead through pit stops, securing a confidence boosting win while team-mate and championship leader Kimi Antonelli managed only third.

Russell said: “It’s incredible to be back on the top step. It’s been a little while. Psychologically, it’s been a tough few races for me. I’ve had a huge amount of support which has helped me to stay resilient and to continue to believe in myself. The tough races definitely test you and these last two weekends for me have been vitally important to remind myself I can do it.”

His only complaint was that his drink system wasn’t working – hardly ideal when the mercury is approaching 40 degrees Celcius. And having a revitalised Verstappen on your tail never helps you to stay cool. Red Bull‘s upgrades worked a treat and, finally not in an overweight car, the Dutchman showed pace that might have been enough to win had he not crashed late in qualifying.

A strategy blunder also gave Russell a reprieve as, having been as close as 1.2 second behind the Mercedes, Verstappen extended his second stint and slipped to more than 10 seconds adrift. He closed the gap again but ran out of time to catch Russell, but fended off Antonelli to split the Silver Arrows.

“I was really impressed and surprised by the pace of Verstappen,” Russell admitted. “He put me under a lot of pressure which forced me to pit early. When I had to do a 28-lap stint in the final one, I was nervous about it, I must say. But I got in a really good groove and realised with about 10 laps to go that he wasn’t going to catch me. And so, with five or six laps to go, I just brought the car home and was taking it slightly easier. That was quite surprising.”

Verstappen is seventh in the drivers’ standings and 98 points adrift of Antonelli. But only a fool would rule him out of the title battle if Red Bull can prove that their pace here wasn’t just a one-off. Verstappen was 104 points off the lead with nine rounds left last term and ended the season two points away from glory.

He was quick to remind everyone yesterday that “there are more races left than last year”. Though he added: “It’s a very big gap. I think for us, we have very good pace, but I think to fight for a title race we still have too many issues, if that’s from a start to just procedural issues in the background that even I think you guys don’t know about, but I know about.”

Antonelli had a messy start which compromised his race and, having dominated practice, he admitted: “This weekend was good learning for me, especially after starting the weekend so strongly. I kind of lost my rhythm a little bit. Maybe I relaxed a bit too much, or I was too confident. For sure, it’s good learning and I will be back stronger in Silverstone.”

Ferrari only went backward and Lewis Hamilton, after finishing fifth, said they are still lacking on the engine front despite their upgrade this weekend. He said: “We’re going to have to push really, really hard to see when we can get the next power upgrade.

“It’s deployment, it doesn’t necessarily feel so much like power, because when you come out of the corner it feels like you’ve got the grip, it’s just deployment. Ours just tails off and, particularly the Mercedes, theirs just keeps going. So we’ve got to look at why and how we can improve that, but that’s not going to come for a while.”