Lewis Hamilton reflected on his day after finishing behind Mercedes team-mate George Russell in both the Austria Sprint race and in qualifying for the main Grand Prix.
Despite demonstrating a stronger qualifying performance in Spielberg, Lewis Hamilton appeared to be expressing frustration with his current situation.
The seven-time Formula 1 champion achieved a sixth-place qualification for the Sprint race and maintained the same position at the end of the race.
This performance determined his starting position for the main Austrian Grand Prix, where Hamilton saw a slight improvement by securing the fifth fastest time in the final part of qualifying.”
However, not everything went smoothly and in the first quarter, he had to put in a strong lap on his last run to prevent the possibility of an embarrassing early elimination.
He was able to achieve this, but his communication with the team through the radio reflected his current feelings towards his Mercedes vehicle.
We’re simply not performing well,” he explained to his race engineer, Peter Bonnington. He appeared somewhat disappointed as he discussed the events of the day after the track action on Saturday.
Hamilton said: “The Sprint was a little frustrating. I was able to get close to the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz but wasn’t quite able to challenge him. We therefore made some changes to the car after the Sprint and that helped. We were able to improve its overall balance and that enabled us to make a step forward. My final lap in Q3 was decent although my middle sector was a little bit down. P5 was better than we managed in Sprint Qualifying though so overall, it was an okay day.
“The adjustments we made to the car should help us in tomorrow’s race. I am therefore hopeful that we will have better race pace than we showed in today’s Sprint. It will be important to get past the Sainz if we are to be in the fight for the podium. Let’s see what we can do.”
Team-mate George Russell finished higher in the Sprint and out-qualified his team-mate for both races. Naturally, he was a lot more upbeat about how things had gone and said: “We can be pleased with P3, and a second row start for tomorrow’s Grand Prix. The car has been feeling great which is fantastic to see given how hard the team has worked to bring our recent updates.
“We are facing tough competition from our rivals, especially Ferrari. It seems like we are still lagging behind the McLarens and Verstappen, but we are making progress.
It’s a positive sign that our team has qualified in the top three for the third consecutive race.”
Toto Wolff, the team principal, expressed satisfaction but admitted that Mercedes needs to make improvements before they can compete against drivers like Lando Norris and Max Verstappen.
He mentioned that the day had been good overall for the team, but also highlighted the areas in which they need to improve in order to be competitive at the highest level. George and Lewis gave impressive performances.
The Sprint race demonstrated a close competition among the top four teams, with a small difference in pace during the right part of the race being crucial.
The goal is to maintain the current positive momentum.
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