George Russell wins in Austria: Inside the Mercedes star's psychological and technical reset

Following a dominant start to the season in Australia, the Mercedes driver navigated a difficult run of form. In the post-race press conference, Russell was remarkably candid about the psychological toll of the last few months, admitting that the pressure of the championship and the pace of his rookie teammate, Kimi Antonelli, who made mistakes in Austria, had tested his resolve.

"The tough races definitely test you psychologically," Russell admitted after securing the win. "These last two weekends have been vitally important to remind myself I can do it."

The struggle wasn't centred on a lack of raw speed but on the "process" of extracting performance from his Mercedes, while bad luck had also played its part. After entering a mid-season slump following the Montreal and Monaco Grands Prix, Russell described reaching a "low point." He noted that maintaining resilience was the only way to navigate a period where it felt like "everything was going against me."

The rise of Antonelli further heightened the pressure. With the young Italian consistently delivering "spectacular performances," Russell had to dig deep to ensure he remained the leader within the Mercedes garage.

He said: "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 teammate 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."

This "cold-blooded" victory, as described by Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff, has reignited Russell’s title hopes. By taking 25 points in Spielberg, Russell has moved back into second place in the F1 Drivers' Championship, trailing the leader by less than 40 points.

However, Russell revealed more details on how he had to press the mental reset button and adopt a new approach.

He added: "Monaco and Montreal were two really tough races for me, and I didn’t leave either of them looking at the data thinking, 'Where is the issue?'It was clear what the problem was, and it was clear how we could maybe solve that. And when we perhaps looked through some historical data, there were some trends of this, and it’s all just been exacerbated with this new car.

Russell came into this season as the title favourite but Antonelli's form has seen the young Italian power his way to the top of the championship standings. When asked if he felt this win and new mindset would help him in his battle, Russell singled out Antonelli for praise.

He said: "Every lap he [Antonelli] does, he’s in the top two of the leaderboard. That was me at the start of the year, and there hasn’t been recently. Barcelona was a real breeze for me because it was just clicking every single lap. But here it was a real fight.