Russell thinks Mercedes have found the 'happy medium': 'Massive difference'

"I think, if anything, we actually geared up slightly more for the race, which is normally a trade-off you'd always take. You can qualify P4 and get into the lead on lap one, or vice versa. It feels so great for us to be here now, but the race start, things can change very quickly," Russell began, who will start from pole position on Sunday.

After Russell has underlined his team usually prepares their car more towards Sunday, he is positive. "So we'd always sort of gear it up slightly more for the race. But yeah, I mean, nothing's changed since last weekend, and the car's been performing so well here. So you need to look into it and try and understand why it's been so good, especially in these high-speed corners, because in Austria, Red Bull were miles ahead of everybody. And at the moment, we've been the quickest. So yeah, it's a difficult sport sometimes."

According to Russell, the German team now have found the best way for their car. "I think we've made some small changes, which have had a big impact. We knew from the start of this year, the baseline of this car is substantially better than what we've had in previous years. But we went from having an oversteer car last year, then to an understeer car this year. And now we've just dialled it back and found the happy medium. When you've got the balance in a good place, the tyre temperatures are in the right window, and the lap time just really snowballs positively. It hasn't been a substantial change, but it's made a massive difference to the lap time."

'We set the car up the same'

Hamilton said there is not much of a different in their approach setting up their car for the weather. "We'd set the car up pretty much exactly the same, whether it's wet or dry. It's just all about optimising the aero package," the seven-time world champion explained.