Lewis Hamilton came into the weekend of the Austrian GP full of hope following Mercedes apparent revival in Montreal and Spain. The seven times world champion claimed his first podium since Mexico last year in Barcelona and the British driver believed he and the team had “cracked” his poor one lap pace in the W15. Yet in practice one Hamilton was over half a second slower than max Verstappen who topped the time sheets and his team mate Russell was a further 2/10th’s back.

Yet come Sprint qualifying, the once master of the single lap who has claimed 104 pole positions in his career was all at sea. In SQ1 Hamilton one quickest early on, but once again a track limits violation at turn six saw his time deleted and the seven times world champion was forced to go out again, while his rivals enjoyed a sufficient gap to remain in the garage.

 

 

 

Lewis disappointment after Sprint qualifying

 

Lewis second effort in SQ1 was a scrappy affair as he missed braking points and apexes yet he delivered a lap time good enough to place him P13 in the field and progressed to SQ2 but not with ease. More indifferent laps were to follow and Lewis finally set a time in SQ3 good enough to see him start 6th in the Saturday morning Sprint race.

When congratulated by the hapless Lawrence Barrett0, Hamilton laughed and dismissed the praise heaped upon him stating: “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.”

Barretto pressed Lewis on his chances in the Sprint the following morning and again the Mercedes driver batted away the question saying his focus would be on Grand Prix qualifying on Saturday afternoon. “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” said Hamilton.

Coming into the weekend Ferrari had taken a hammering in Montreal and Barcelona and having closed the gap to Red Bull to just 24 points following Charles Leclerc’s maiden home win in Monaco, the Scuderia’s deficit to the world champions had slipped to 60 points and McLaren were closing in now just 33 points behind Hamilton’s future team.

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Austria to test Hamilton optimistic claims

Of course Mercedes were buoyant having claimed their second consecutive P3/P4 finish at the Circuit de Catalunya with Lewis Hamilton believing he has now cracked the one lap worries he’s been suffering. 

“I mean a huge amount of analysis, [I] requested a lot of information from the team on how we can improve where we’re lacking it is simply with tyres,” Hamilton said. “So just continuing to improve on our processes from session to session.

“Typically once you get to qualifying things do change a little bit, the car is obviously lighter, [and] we’re in the DRS a lot more. But time will tell, I think we’ve cracked something now it’s to try and build on that.”

Of course the margins in Barcelona qualifying were minuscule, as Hamilton who was third finished just 0.002 seconds ahead of George Russell and 0.030 seconds in front of Charles Leclerc, so this weekend in Austria will test the claims of the seven times world champion.

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Leclerc says problems “not related”

Further, Charles Leclerc believes Ferrari are in fact not in a long term slump and heading to Austria where he won in 2022 the Monegasque explains the problems they encountered recently were not linked and so this is not a trend.

“In Montreal, we identified quite well what was going wrong, and it was more down to the tyres,” Leclerc told assembled media in Spielberg. “In Barcelona, it was just raw pace [we were lacking] and we were just slower than we expected, but I don’t think we optimised our package.

“We’ll keep on working on ourselves, try to optimise also the new package that we have on the car, which obviously was the first race in Barcelona.”

Given Austria is one of this season’s Sprint weekends, Ferrari’s job will not be easy as they have just one hour of practice to try and understand the upgrades they have brought to the SF-24. However, the evidence this year is the Ferrari have performed well on circuits with shorter corners and heavy traction zones, a combination which describes much of the circuit the drivers will be competing on this weekend.

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Austria to suit Ferrari characteristics

“I feel like the potential is in the car, the preparation on the simulator for this track went well,” explains Leclerc, “so I feel confident we’ll be back in the fight. We’ve been struggling mostly with long, slow-speed corners, which here there are fewer of.

“So that’s a good sign for us, but we’re also working on that in order to have a better car in those corners, which I think we’ve seen some good steps forward in the last few races. 

“However we were struggling then in other corners, so we’ve just got to put everything together, but we are working on it and I’m confident it will be fine this weekend.”

Last time out in Austria the F1 show was farcical. Aston Martin demanded the stewards investigate some 1200 track limits violations after the race, meaning the final classification was issued late into the night. The FIA had insisted the circuit operator alter the final two corners where drivers were persistently gaining a benefit from running outside the white lines, yet their demands went unheard.

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Threat of cancelled 2025 Austrian GP

The Red Bull Ring contended the changes required would make the track unsafe for the motorbike events it held, yet under threat of losing the Grand Prix in 2025, the Red Bull Ring has now has complied. The generous run off areas where the drivers suffered no risk by pushing too hard have been restricted as strips of gravel have been inserted just less than a cars width behind the white lines.

The rest of the asphalt run off further back is unaffected and so for other events where the gravel is deemed dangerous, the strips containing the ‘kitty litter’ can be easily filled in.

“That’s what [the drivers] want and what they have asked for,” said race director Niels Wittich. “They will get feedback, they will feel it when they get close to the gravel, and if they do dip a wheel onto the gravel it will penalise them because the car will be slower.

“It’s a natural deterrent and that has been the number one request from the drivers. It takes away any temptation to explore the limits because there is no gain anymore. If it’s just a line or just asphalt, drivers and teams will always go to the last millimetre because you can. But when you run over the gravel, it’s impossible to be faster,” concluded the F1 race director.

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Piastri discovers problems

Meanwhile Oscar Piastri who suffered poor results in both Montreal and Spain following his P2 in the Monaco grand Prix believes he will again be up with team mate Lando Norris again this weekend.

“Yeah, I think we do [have the answers],” Piastri told assembled media in Austria. “There were definitely some things on [the] car set-up that certainly caused some problems. Some things were not major but had much bigger consequences than maybe we thought at the time.

“There’s definitely a lot of evidence to support why I struggled a bit more [and] definitely a couple of things in terms of [my] driving, as well,” explained the Australian.

Norris and Verstappen have finished either first or second in four of the last five rounds, and Oscar Piastri hopes he can join the party on the podium at the end of Sunday’s Grand Prix.

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Red Bull boss admits crisis looming

Red Bull boss explains they are not favourites in Austria. As the Formula One teams prepared to race in Austria last season, McLaren had been woeful during the preceding Grand Prix. The papaya liveried team had scored just 17 points while Red Bull Racing led the charge for the constructors’ championship on a whopping 323 points.

Yet the Woking based squad were to bring their first decent upgrade of the season, but only had enough components to fit to Lando Norris car. With Austria now a designated Sprint weekend, the teams have just one practice session before qualifying and McLaren with their upgraded car did a decent job in the Friday morning practice session…. READ MORE