After a complicated Formula 1 qualifying session for Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton spoke about his violent accident in Q3, which will force him to start from tenth position for Saturday’s sprint. The driver was very disappointed with himself, but received the support of Toto Wolff who responded to the media after the accidents that took out both Hamilton and Russell.

A complicated day for Mercedes. George Russell and Lewis Hamilton were both victims of big crashes in Q3. As a result, the former will start 5th in Saturday’s sprint race, while the latter will start from 10th position. The result was disappointing from a sporting point of view and Hamilton was very hard on himself in the media.

The British driver began by reassuring everyone who might be interested of his accident: “It was a big crash, but I’m fine,” he said.

“I’m ultimately incredibly disappointed with myself and so sorry for the team who worked so hard to put this car together and I never like to bring it back damaged. We were fighting for the top three, I think, and I have no answer for my accident. I lost the rear in turn seven and that was it. I don’t know why.”

Hamilton still found positives in all of this, particularly in the car’s performance saying: “I’m optimistic for sure, I’m optimistic of course to see our performance. We didn’t expect it to be as close as it was today. It’s a huge positive for the team, but I’m really quite far back, so I don’t know what’s possible from here. We have a sprint race, so hopefully I can make up some ground before the race on Sunday.”

Toto Wolff was keen to reassure his two drivers:

“These two should never blame themselves because of this situation. We gave them a car that wasn’t up to scratch for 10 races in a row and now we’re starting to drive at the front, it can happen that you lose the car. I’d rather have a fast car and qualify like this than not have the pace to be in the top four.”

The Austrian also said he was surprised by the Mercedes’ performance so far this weekend:

“We’ve always struggled at Spielberg, even on one of our best days it wasn’t great, so we weren’t expecting to take a new step in terms of performance. But little by little things are falling into place.”

A performance that keeps Mercedes optimistic, despite a disappointing qualifying session.

“We have the Sprint tomorrow and the race on Sunday. If we have good days again, we could make a lot of progress,” he concluded.