George Russell hailed an \u201cincredible\u201d feeling as he returned to the top step of the F1 podium with a confident drive to victory in Sunday\u2019s Austrian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
Russell<\/a>, who last won at the Australia season opener back in March, and subsequently endured a tricky run of races, nailed his start, managed Virtual Safety Car periods and kept a charging Max Verstappen<\/a> at bay to convert pole into the win.<\/p>\n As a result, Russell reduced his deficit to Mercedes<\/a> team mate Kimi Antonelli<\/a> \u2013 who finished third \u2013 in the Drivers\u2019 Championship<\/a>, bringing the gap down from 50 points to 40.<\/p>\n Speaking after the race, and reflecting on his afternoon at the wheel, Russell said: \u201cIt\u2019s incredible to be back on the top step. It\u2019s been a little while, so I\u2019m definitely going to enjoy this one this evening.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of hard work from my team to get us back on track. Obviously there was a tricky run of form at one point.<\/p>\n \u201cMax and Red Bull were incredibly quick this weekend, so kudos to them, but thanks to everyone, thanks to the fans. It was pretty toasty out there, so I\u2019m looking forward to a drink now.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked about running wide at Turn 3 late on, in an otherwise faultless drive, Russell continued: \u201cI was having to push every single lap, and when you push those boundaries there\u2019s bound to be a small mistake or two in there, and I know how quick the guys were behind.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously Kimi has been extraordinarily quick this whole season, so every lap I was looking at the timing board. We pitted on the early side, and I knew it was going to be a long stint, but the team timed it to perfection.\u201d<\/p>\n Russell went on to explain just how much of a boost the weekend as a whole \u2013 returning to P1 in both Qualifying and the race \u2013 gives him before moving onto his home event at Silverstone in a few days\u2019 time.<\/p>\n \u201cThe tough races definitely test you psychologically, and these last two weekends for me have been vitally important to remind myself I can do it,\u201d he said, having also taken pole in Barcelona.<\/p>\n \u201cSingle lap, race pace, was very strong this weekend, and on a track that is probably not very well-suited to my style, so I\u2019m looking forward to heading to Silverstone next week, seeing all the home fans. I\u2019m sure it\u2019s going to be great.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell hailed an \u201cincredible\u201d feeling as he returned to the top step of the F1 podium with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-515300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}