George Russell unable to get aligned with his car, drove abnormally to win the Austrian Grand Prix

Russell has been reacting to teammate Kimi Antonelli's form so far in the 2026 Formula 1 season, and while luck was not on the Briton's side in some instances, other issues were due to his inability to get his head around the W17 and its tyre management.

Despite admitting the boost after winning in Austria, Russell shed some light on his struggles; he said: "I have a lot of confidence in myself, knowing I can do it.

"I have less confidence in being able to get everything aligned with the car, the setup, and the tyres, because it’s just been so up and down for me," he added.

Russell admitted that his engineers have helped him pinpoint the issues, and while the solutions were also highlighted, that meant driving the car in a way that wasn't natural to him.

He explained: "The team has done a really incredible job to put some real answers down as to why the performances were not good.

"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.

"Coming into this race weekend maybe my previous approach would have really hurt me on a track like this," he pointed out. "And I drove the race very differently and quite abnormally, to be honest, to manage the tyres, and it worked quite well.

"Last year, I really knew how to handle the tyres on hot tracks, cold tracks, smooth surfaces, rough surfaces. And this year, I don’t, to be honest. So, I’m rebuilding that," Russell concluded. (Reporting by Agnes Carlier)