George Russell has said that he is “confident” his Williams team can bring more performance to their car as they bid to catch the rest of the grid.

Williams have had a troubled campaign and both Russell and his teammate Robert Kubica have been confined to the back of the grid for the majority of the season.

But the team showed some signs of progress in Austria and Russell eventually managed to finish ahead of Kevin Magnussen’s Haas.

Speaking in Thursday’s press conference, Russell said: “I think it’s a step-by-step process for us at the moment.”

“We had to make two steps back before we made three steps forward.”

“The groundworks are kind of really in place at the moment to try to bring more performance to the car as the season progresses and I’ve got confident we can do that.”

Although Russell is confident his team can make some solid progress, he still feels that he is going to have a tough British Grand Prix.

“It’s going to be another difficult weekend for us and we’ve just got to do our maximum week in, week out”.

Williams focusing on the future

This weekend at Silverstone marks the 40th anniversary of Williams’ first win. Swiss driver Clay Regazzoni won that race in 1979 and although Williams have not won a race since the Spanish Grand Prix in 2012, Russell believes the team are targeting additional victories in the long term.

“I’m very, very aware of what the team is achieved, it is an honour to race for Williams” added Russell.

“We are almost getting the mickey taken out of us with our performance, but it’s a longer-term project for the team”.

“You could have done a number of short-term things to be good in the moment but the team have bigger and greater things in mind.”