Russell finished the second race at the Red Bul🐷l Ring in 11th, losin൩g out to Fernando Alonso in the closing laps.

The Mercedes-linked driver 𒀰was involved in a titanic battle wit🎃h Alonso, holding him off until four laps to go. 

Russell had started the race from eighth but drop💞ped to 12th after the opening lap. 

He says being for𝔍ced to avoid AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda on Lap 1 was the reason he 🍎fell down the order.

“It was pretty worrying at the ▨start; I felt like we had a bit of a problem,” Russell said. We still need to investigate. We’ve got a little idea where that came from and then made a good start but unfortunately [Yuki] Tsunoda jolted in front of me – I think he had a big lockup and had to avoid a big incident which really compromised me and made me lose twꦏo or three positions. 

“But nevertheless, that did not change the 💙race result.”

Russell admitted Alonso getting past🉐 was inevitable given Alpine’s 🧸superior performance across the Austrian GP weekend. 

“We did a good strategy, [I] drove my heart out, but if you could choose to have any driver behind𝕴 you in a situation like that, you wouldn’t choose Fernando, and he had the pace for the top five yesterday,” Russell added.

“So keeping a guy like Fernando, who had the pace for the top five behind, was nigh-on impossible but I definitel𓃲y gave it a shot and yes: so close yet so far.”

During his time with Williams, R🃏ussell has often spent races running aroundꦇ by himself at the back of the grid.

He believes his fight ✤with Alonso was ‘one of his first real battles’ in F1.

“Positives: Q3. Positives: P11, so close to the top 10, and personally that’s probably one of my first real battlꦛes on track, and it felt like I held my own and didn’t make any silly mistakes,”  he explained. “I’ve been in F1 three years now but one of those years I was driving around completely on my own. Last year was a little bit of the same, so you know, that was pretty nice to have a battle like that and especially with a guy like Fernando.”