Mercedes were riding with confidence after Lewis Hamilton bagged his first podium finish of the season in Barcelona. Before that, George Russell bagged the pole position and finished P3 in Canada. That run seems to be coming to a halt in Austria as Lewis Hamilton looks back at the ‘disastrous’ sprint qualifying.
The seven-time champion was the fifth fastest in the solitary practice session for the weekend. His teammate, meanwhile, could only manage an eighth-fastest finish. Despite that, Hamilton felt the car was in good shape to tackle the sprint qualifying.
He couldn’t be more wrong as he personally found himself kicking up dust from the gravel trap multiple times. Hamilton eventually qualified P6 while Russell will start from P4.
Speaking after the session, as quoted by Sky Sports, 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.”
Sprint Quali, wrapped up ⏱️
George P4, Lewis P6 Next up, a Saturday filled with the Sprint and GP qualifying pic.twitter.com/RsgPNSm8Ja
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) June 28, 2024
Hamilton also rued the lack of overtaking opportunities on the Austrian track. That could further upset his chances of scything through the field to land a podium finish in the sprint race. That has led to him shifting his focus on doing better in the qualifying later on Saturday. If the team can make some crucial tweaks, the Briton might just pull off another Barcelona-like performance on Sunday.
Toto Wolff delivers verdict on Mercedes’ sprint qualifying performance
Toto Wolff had some mixed reactions on Mercedes‘ state of affairs so far in the Austrian GP weekend. While he feels they have made good strides so far, he admitted the qualifying performance was a forgettable one. However, the Austrian also blamed the rising expectations from the team for being the reason why the underwhelming sprint qualifying looks disastrous.
He said, “The weekend has gone well. FP1 was a good session for us, qualifying not so, but it’s clear your expectations are different now. We thought we could play for pole and clearly Verstappen was just much too quick and the McLarens, like they have done in the past, were able to put a strong lap in.”
Wolff was cautious against judging the team solely on the basis of the performance in sprint qualifying. However, he expects the pecking order to remain pretty much the same for the sprint race.
The Mercedes boss still holds higher expectations for the qualifying for the main race which he highlights “is a different game”. Wolff expects Hamilton and Russell to close the gap to Max Verstappen as the weekend progresses with a front-row finish being the ideal result.
