"We need to find a bit more magic in qualifying"- George Russell confident of winning a race this season after strong result at Dutch GP

George Russell reckons Mercedes are close to winning a race this season but will need to find better qualifying pace.

The Mercedes driver ended the Dutch GP on Sunday in P2 in a race that showcased the German team's splendid race pace. If it wasn't for the Virtual Safety Car and Safety Car perio, Mercedes could have had a double podium with Russell and Lewis Hamilton.

During the post-race press conference, Russell said that he's positive that the team can fight for wins now have work to do on single-lap pace, saying:

"There's no doubt we've got the race pace to be able to win," said Russell. "Absolutely sure of that. And had we been starting P2/3/4 we probably could have won the race today. And, ultimately it’s going to come down to our qualifying performance on a Saturday."

He added that the team need to qualify in the front races to give themselves a better chance of winning, as Mercedes don't have the fastest car in the grid.

"If we continue to qualify P6 and P8 as we have done in the last two race weekends, we're going to really struggle to win a race. But we need to find a bit more magic in qualifying as we showed in Budapest."

About the upswing in the team's fortunes, Russell said that the result in Zandvoort was expected, as the layout was similar to the Hungaroring, where he scored his first ever pole. He said:

"I think there's no surprises there because these are two very similar circuits: high downforce; a lot of medium speed corners. And that's where the car really comes into its own. So, you know, we go into some very different circuits in the upcoming races."

He continued:

"But globally, we're bringing a lot of performance to the car. And, as I said, I think we have a car that's capable of fighting victory; we just need to be able to start a little bit higher up the order."

---

Performance on hard tyres not a surprise - George Russell

Mercedes had exceptional race pace on hard tyres, which caught both Max Verstappen and Red Bull by surprise at Zandvoort.

The hard tyre wasn't the preferred one in Hungary, and Charles Leclerc's race was infamously ruined by Ferrari, who him on hard.

However, Russell said that it wasn't a surprise to see the hard working well at Zandvoort. The track layout suited Mercedes, and everything worked well for the team. He said:

"I think the car was really feeling good this weekend from lap one. On Friday, I knew it was going to be a much better weekend than we had in Spa. I think Spa played against us, Zandvoort probably towards us. So, I'm not sure how our Monza performance is going to be. I think it'll probably be somewhere between the two. Hopefully closer to what we saw this weekend, but I think it’s really promising (that) we have so much race pace."

Russell's P2 has left him only 13 points behind Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez (201) in the drivers' championship, who trail leader Max Verstappen (310) by over 100 points.