George Russell agrees with Toto Wolff as Mercedes suffer double woe at Austrian GP

George Russell has agreed with Toto Wolff as Mercedes turn some attention to the British Grand Prix after a nightmare in Austria. Both the driver and the team boss are already looking ahead to Silverstone having struggled in Spielberg.

Russell was eliminated in Q2 of the sprint shootout after suffering a hydraulics failure ahead of the second session. Mechanics worked frantically to fix the issue but their efforts were futile with the Mercedes star not able to return to the track.

It leaves Russell P15 for the sprint race and a lot of work to do to earn any of the extra points on offer. He said: “Hydraulics failure so not too sure the ins and outs. It's a real shame the pace was looking strong.

"Considering we were on the medium tyre, it was P4 and P5 in Q1, no reason why we couldn't have a good qualifying today. Especially with a new set of softs we had going into W3, I think top five was definitely on the cards.

"It's just not our weekend, it's just one of those things when it rains it pours. So we will see what we can do this afternoon and tomorrow and definitely try and come back stronger next week.

“I think the sprint is going to be difficult, I think unless the track temperature really warms up there won't really be any tyre deg so it's going to probably be a DRS train.” Team boss Wolff described Mercedes' performance in Austria as “underwhelming” on Friday as McLaren and Ferrari provided a genuine threat.

The team principal confirmed work would be done to improve the car for Silverstone to move back behind Red Bull. He explained: “We came with expectations that we would be fighting for P2 or P3, with the Ferraris and Aston Martins, and we underperformed.

“You see that the time gaps are not huge. You're talking two-tenths up and down and it makes a big difference.

"We are bringing something to Silverstone and hopefully it has the impact that McLaren and Ferrari had [with their upgrades] today.” Lewis Hamilton also struggled on Saturday with the seven-time champion knocked out in Q1 of the shootout.

The Briton will be forced to start the sprint race P18 after suffering tyre issues and having been caught up in traffic. After the session, Hamilton said: “The timing was not right. The sprint race doesn’t really matter anyway so today I’ll just have some fun from the back and it is what it is. I don’t really feel anyway about it to be honest.”