Russell searching for answers after Merc ‘substantially worse than expected'

Lewis Hamilton and Russell could only finish seventh and eighth respectively, leaving Austria as the fifth-best team behind Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren and Aston Martin.

Since introducing their upgrade package in Monaco, Mercedes have scored two podiums, while Hamilton hadn’t finished outside the top four.

Russell, on the other hand, has found it more difficult, although his pace on race day typically has been a close match to Hamilton. 

Speaking after the race in Austria, Russell said he was confident that Mercedes will “get to the bottom” of their struggles.

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“I’m sure we will get to the bottom of it, but we still have the same car from two races ago in Barcelona when we were flying so the only thing that is different is the tyres, something we need to understand,” Russell said.

“A few surprises out there, Lando and McLaren did a really great job so well done to them. We need to understand what went wrong on our side.

“It definitely doesn’t feel how we want it to, the car is moving around a lot, a little bit worse than all of the other circuits but the pace was substantially worse than we were expecting. We need to get to the bottom of it.”

Mercedes are expected to bring more upgrades to the next race at Silverstone.

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“(Silverstone upgrades) are another step in the right direction it’s just another step,” he added. “It’s clearly circuit dependent because we were nowhere here and with the same car we were good in Canada and fast in Barcelona. 

“That bodes well for Silverstone because Silverstone is more in line with Barcelona than it is this circuit.”