Lewis Hamilton let his frustrations come to the fore after the sprint shootout at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton was left to rue what he described as ‘very bad laps’ after finishing sixth in the sprint shootout at the Austrian Grand Prix on Friday.
Mercedes looked to have carried their momentum from Barcelona into the weekend in Spielberg, demonstrating impressive pace on the hard compound tyre. However, this did not translate into sprint shootout performance.
On a personal level, Hamilton’s session was a messy one. The legendary Brit ran off the track at the start of the session, forcing him to run off sequence to his rivals before eventually punching in the sixth-fastest time in SQ3.
Assessing his sprint shootout session, he said: “I wasn’t in the mix at all, the whole session was pretty disastrous from our point. Practice was good, the car felt good, I don’t think we had the pace to be on pole, but very bad laps.
“I don’t think overtaking is mega here, but we’ll give our best. It’s usually not such an eventful race, so I think the focus will be mostly on getting a better qualifying tomorrow.”
Hamilton was disappointed with his starting position of P6, but his teammate, George Russell, was relatively content.
Russell finished the sprint race in fourth place, with only Max Verstappen and the two McLaren drivers in front of him. Russell expressed satisfaction with his performance on Friday, stating that his lap during the SQ3 session felt particularly competitive.
He admitted that he may have miscalculated the gap during his out lap, causing him to push too hard and wear out the tires prematurely, leading to a decrease in peak grip. The only reason I can think of is that the lap felt powerful, possibly the top lap of the session.
It was a significant decrease in performance. Finishing in P4 is still a good position to be in for the upcoming competition. We will definitely be contending for a podium finish in the Sprint race. Keeping a close watch on the primary race is crucial. However, it is reassuring to see that we are competitive.
Currently, we may be slightly ahead of Ferrari, with McLaren leading by a small margin. It is satisfying to be consistently performing well at the forefront.”
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