George Russell says Mercedes made another step "in the right direction" at Silverstone last weekend, but the Briton insists his team is keeping its expectations in check in Austria.
Mercedes' updates combined with Silverstone's high-speed layout led to a strong display by the Brackley squad, with Lewis Hamilton battling with the front-runners and scoring his second podium in succession.
Unfortunately, Russell was sidelined at the outset at Silverstone following his inadvertent involvement in the race's massive start-line crash.
Assessing Mercedes' prospects in Austria, Russell believes his team may struggle to uphold its momentum at the Red Bull Ring given the track's medium-speed profile.
"I don’t think we want to get too carried away, because I think Silverstone is a very unique circuit in the sense of the speeds you’re going through all of those corners," Russell said.
"We clearly have a lot of downforce and good potential at a circuit like Silverstone.
"We’re going to another circuit here that’s, I’d say, more medium-speed as opposed to high-speed. We need to keep on evaluating.
"I think Silverstone was a really good step in the right direction and we’ve taken some really good understanding from there. But we’re sort of going to go again this weekend and see how we get on."
Hamilton has also been encouraged by Mercedes' progress of late. And the seven-time world champion is convinced that an outright win on merit may not be too far away for the championship winning outfit.
"Definitely, hugely encouraging" he said of his performance in his home race last weekend.
"For a long, long time we would make changes and not see it do what it said it was going to do or improve the car.
"It was a good step in Barcelona, but then we had several difficult races following it. And then we just had this last race, the last two races, which were quite strong, and that’s really encouraged us that we're moving in the right direction, that there really is potential in the car.
"With a little bit more digging and a little bit more hard work, hopefully we can get closer to having a chance to win a race.
"So I truly believe we can get a race win this year."
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