Hamilton: 'Mind blowing' that fans cheered qualifying crash

Lewis Hamilton says it was "mind blowing" that some fans cheered his crash in qualifying in Austria on Friday.

A rare mistake sent Hamilton into the barriers in Q3 and the mishap was met with an uproar from the grandstands populated in large part with Max Verstappen fans, his "orange army".

At Silverstone, it was the Dutchman who had found himself on the receiving end of the British fans' jarring, the latter booing Verstappen after qualifying.

In both cases, Hamilton denounced the behaviour of those discordant voices in the grandstands.

"I didn't hear them during [the accident], I mean, I was going through a bunch of stuff in the crash," he said, commenting on the matter on Saturday at the Red Bull Ring.

"But to hear it afterwards, you know, I don't agree or condone any of that no matter what.

"A driver could have been in hospital. And you're going to cheer that? I mean, it's just mind-blowing that people will do that, just knowing how dangerous our sport is.

"And I'm grateful that I wasn't in hospital, and I wasn't heavily injured, but you should never cheer someone's downfall or someone's injury or crash.

"It shouldn't have happened in Silverstone, even though it wasn't obviously a crash, and it shouldn't have happened here."

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was also incensed by the toxic attitude directed at Hamilton, or at any drivers for that matter.

"Booing is not right in any sport," Wolff said. "Teams fight, but booing is a personal attack on the driver.

"We heard them at Silverstone too and they were not good."

McLaren's Daniel Ricciardo, one of the sport's most popular drivers, says cheering or booing an on-track rivalry is part of the sport's landscape.

But the Aussie agreed that extreme behaviours from fans in the grandstands when an accident occurs is unacceptable.

"An accident falls into a bit of a different kind of territory," he said. "For sure rivalries are great, and the Lewis and Max one especially last year was awesome, and like any sport you’re always going to have for and against.

"So I think on-track battles to be cheered or whatever is cool.

"I’ve never been a fan of booing so I don’t condone booing. Of course you’re going to have the ones you like and the ones that you don’t necessarily root for.

"But I think in an accident, you wish not to see it.

"It’s easy when you’re in the crowd all day and you’ve obviously had a few beers and that and if the guy next to you does it then you think it’s okay that you can do it.

"But I feel like you get to an age where you also mature and you realise that, okay what I did when I was 15, I shouldn’t be doing as a 30-year-old man. You have to be a little more sensible."

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter