The 2026 Austrian Grand Prix was one of those races where either of the second or third-place finishers could have won, but the victorious driver – Mercedes' George Russell – was the one who best resisted the pressure at the crucial point.
He remains behind team-mate Kimi Antonelli, the championship leader, but moved up to second place in the standings and narrowed the gap on a day when Antonelli let an untidy first corner compound into an untidy first stint, clearly still rattled by a mistake in qualifying that led him to abort a lap which would have put him on the front row.
Russell's ability to execute while under duress, and identify anything which can give him an edge over his rivals, are skills which will enable him to overturn that gap to his teammate, according to his former team boss Claire Williams.
"From my experience of George, I think he is perfectly capable of winning that psychological battle when it comes to trying to win a world championship, competing for that against your team-mate, who is invariably going to be the hardest competitor or rival that you have, because you're in the same equipment," she told select media including Motorsport.com.
"What he's good at – he's quite self-aware, George – he'll be sitting there thinking each and every day, ‘What do I need to do in order to surpass my team-mate? How can I win that battle?'
"Invariably, in those championships, where team-mates are racing one another – similar to when Lewis [Hamilton] and Nico [Rosberg] were going up against each other and Nico took it – it's the psychological battle that wins the war. And I think George, because he's got a layer of maturity, perhaps, over Kimi at this stage, just by sheer numbers, I think that's where he will win the fight."
Claire Williams took over the day-to-day running of the Williams team when father Frank stepped back in 2013
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Russell was a Mercedes junior when he was placed at the Williams team – then still owned and run by the Williams family – after winning his rookie F2 season in 2018. Although the deal enabled the cash-strapped team to access Mercedes engines at a discount, money continued to be tight and the 2019 car was uncompetitive.
The pandemic the following year ushered Williams towards bankruptcy and the team was only saved by a sale to new owners Dorilton capital. Meanwhile, Russell remained at the back of the grid while Mercedes and Hamilton won two more world championships.
Although Russell continued to covet a Mercedes seat, this didn't come about until the end of 2021, when it elected to dispense with Valtteri Bottas as Hamilton's team-mate. Unfortunately for Russell, his ascent to the works team coincided with a change in technical regulations with which Mercedes consummately failed to get to grips.
Russell in the Williams FW43 in Bahrain in 2020. A week later he was in a Mercedes as substitute for an ill Lewis Hamilton
Photo by: Getty Images
"Whenever George was at Williams and he wanted to get out of his contract, and he just could see the Mercedes there winning everything, my argument was always clear. These years might be hard and you might be miserable right now, but they will stand you in good stead and provide a really strong platform and a cloak of resilience that you may need to call upon in your later years in F1.
"He just takes it very seriously. And I'm not sure, I don't know whether you can necessarily over-analyse, because there's so much in F1 that does need analysis. I think George is just thorough, and he's a perfectionist.
"That can only be an advantage in the position he's finding himself in this year.
"He used to tell a story about when he was karting with his dad when he was very young. People used to nickname him ‘Grandpa' because he just behaved in an extraordinarily mature way for his years.
"And I think that level of maturity afforded him that level of perfectionism. That's George, isn't it? He has to do everything to the best of his abilities."
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Originally published by motorsport.com —
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