The track limits and subsequently the impeding have been the pain in the neck for drivers at the Red Bull Ring. Multiple drivers faced the unfortunate situation where their lap times got deleted and they unwillingly impeded a driver.
Even though most of the impedances were unintentional, Max Verstappen’s cannot be said the same. It is believed that the Red Bull driver intentionally blocked Lewis Hamilton in the very last seconds of the SQ1.
The Dutchman had his part to say, as he was also impeded by Hamilton. Citing this, Verstappen said the Mercedes driver cost him three-tenths of a second. Following this he couldn’t help but to stay in Hamilton’s way for the ‘revenge.’
Despite this, Mercedes decided not to appeal against it as they saw it wasn’t worth it. If appealed ferociously, the defending champion might have had a three to five-place grid penalty for the Sprint race.
Wolff called Verstappen’s action deliberate
The Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has opened up about the situation. According to him, Hamilton impeding Verstappen was unintentional, whereas it was all about revenge the other way around.
When asked why they didn’t appeal against it to the stewards, Wolff revealed as per RaceFans, “But who cares? At the end, we looked at it, it wasn’t going to change our race. But I think they’re going to talk about it in the drivers’ briefing next week.”
Furthermore, the Mercedes boss also grieved about not having proper communication between the team and Hamilton. The SQ1 exit and being an impeder as well as being impeded made the whole evening a tougher one for the seven-time world champion.
Despite the lowly start, Hamilton and Mercedes made significant improvement
As per the Sprint shootout, Hamilton was slated to start from P18, three places behind his teammate George Russell. However, the recovery by both of the drivers was brilliant.
The 38-year-old in the end finished his race in P10 in the wet conditions but just missed out on points as the point system is Sprint is till P8, unlike the main race.
The Mercedes duo arrived aggressively once the race started and were the first team to put both drivers on slicks from the intermediates.
Russell managed to claim a point as he finished in P8. Overall, it was a decent improvement from the Silver Arrows as a whole.
As things stand, Lewis Hamilton starts Sunday’s race from P5, which gives him the chance for his third back-to-back podium. It’ll be interesting to see if Lewis Hamilton can make it work in the main race.
