Hamilton assigned new chassis after sprint qualifying crash

Lewis Hamilton has been reportedly assigned a new chassis by Mercedes following the Briton's crash in Friday's Q3 session at the Red Bull Ring, a change that is penalty-free for the Briton.

Hamilton lost control in the middle of Turn 7 and crashed into the barrier, heavily damaging his Mercedes W13. Unfortunately, teammate George Russell followed suit later in the session when he also veered off course and into the tyre wall at the track's final corner.

Wolff said Mercedes' crews on both sides of its garage were left with big repair jobs.

"A lot of damage," said the Austrian as he summed up his team's affairs.

"I think we have two floors, two boxes that we need to check, a rear wing... lots of little bits and pieces.

"Yesterday in the garage in the early evening it looked like somebody dropped a Lego car on the floor, and the mechanics are doing great work."

• Hamilton on Q3 crash: 'I’m incredibly disappointed in myself'

Wolff praised Mercedes' mechanics for their late-night efforts in putting back together two competitive racings cars while only having six hours of authorised intervention on Friday before the mandatory curfew set in.

"We had a competitive car. The last few corners that Lewis attacked were the fastest overall," he said.

"Will we have fought for pole position? I'm not sure, but we would have been maybe within a tenth, a tenth and a half of the frontrunners… on a circuit where our car really wasn't that good before. So that's an improvement.

"I'd rather have two cars in the wall fighting for pole than a car that is P8 and drives 'Steady Eddie'."

While Mercedes' silver arrow remains a "tricky to driver", Wolff alluded to driver error as the reason for Hamilton and Russell's incidents.

"The car is still tricky to drive and now that we can actually fight for front positions, I'm really happy to see that they attack," he said.

"Lewis, in the corner before was carrying 10km/h more speed and made Turn 6 and then he is carrying 10km/h more speed into [Turn 7] and didn't make the corner.

"The same a little bit for George. He saw that he was up on his delta time. That was a particular strength of his previous rounds, and it went too far.

"So, whether there was wind or any other conditions, I think the summary is the car is tricky to drive but it's faster now and for me that's absolutely OK."

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