GEORGE RUSSELL holds a psychological edge over world championship rival Kimi Antonelli, his former boss Claire Williams has claimed ahead of this weekend’s crunch British Grand Prix.

Russell will arrive for his home race at Silverstone with a spring in his step after a much-needed win in Austria allowed him to reduce Mercedes team-mate Antonelli’s lead from 50 points to 40.

Russell started the season as the title favourite, but 19-year-old Antonelli — in only his second campaign in Formula One — has won five of the eight rounds staged so far to lead the way.

However, Williams, who provided Russell with his first F1 drive in 2019, is confident the British driver will hold the upper hand if it comes down to a battle of the minds.

“My experience of George is that he is perfectly capable of winning that psychological battle to take a world championship,” said Williams, the former de facto team principal of the British team.

“George is quite self-aware and he will be sitting there each and every day working out, ‘What do I need to do in order to surpass my team-mate? And how can I win that battle?’

“It is similar to when Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg were going up against each other at Mercedes in 2016 and Nico took the title — it is a psychological battle that wins the war. And because George has got a layer of maturity over Kimi at this stage, just by sheer numbers, that is where he will win the fight.

“George used to tell a story from when he was karting and people used to nickname him ‘Grandpa’ because he used to behave in an extraordinarily mature way for his years.

“So, I believe he has got it. He has got the talent. It is just about making sure the Mercedes has the reliability he needs to get it over the line.”

And Williams continued: “When George was at Williams and he wanted to get out of his contract and he could see the Mercedes there winning everything, my argument to him was that, ‘These years might be hard and you might be miserable right now, but they will stand you in good stead and provide a really strong platform and a cloak of resilience that you may need to call upon in your later years in Formula One’.”