Buoyed by recent improvements, most notably in Spain and at Silverstone, Lewis Hamilton now believes Mercedes is capable of winning races again.

Following a few false starts, and even a couple of backwards steps, at Silverstone Mercedes appeared to have finally got on top of its bouncing issues and was therefore able to mount a sustainable challenge.

However, with the German team having admitted that the issue is track specific, many feel that drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell are not currently able to seriously challenge Red Bull and Ferrari.

Maybe not, but the seven-time world champion genuinely believes that he now has a car capable of winning again.

"A long way back, earlier this year, I definitely wasn't sure that we'd get a win in this car," Hamilton told reporters as the Spielberg weekend got underway.

"That was definitely not the way we like to think," he admitted, "but it was that feeling that 'Jesus, there's a long, long way to catch everyone up'.

"But it's definitely been hugely encouraging," he continued. "For a long, long time, we would make changes and not see it do what it says it was going to do and improve the car.

"It was a good step in Barcelona, but then we had several difficult races. Then we just had these last two races which were quite strong and that's really encouraging us in the right direction, that there really is potential in the car.

"With a little bit more digging and a little more hard work, hopefully we can get closer to winning a race, so I truly believe we can win a race win this year.

"Definitely in Silverstone there was definitely potential to win the race," he insisted. "But with our current performance we're not on exactly the same level as the two teams ahead. We needed everything to align, so we didn't need that safety car at the end.

"We've always struggled in Austria," he admitted, "so it's going to be hard to win here knowing the combination of corners, but not impossible.

"The weather is up and down. I'm hoping that I'll be pleasantly surprised tomorrow, but I might be wrong. I'll find out. But I'm staying hopeful. The best thing you can do is arrive hopeful and positive and navigate from there."

Check out our Thursday gallery from Spielberg here.