Lewis Hamilton says he was never in the mix in Friday’s Austrian Grand Prix Sprint qualifying, labeling his session as “pretty disastrous”.
After a solid run in free practice that carried the promise of a good showing in the afternoon grid-defining session, Hamilton clocked in just P6 in SQ3.
The Briton’s best effort was almost six tenths down on poleman Max Verstappen and 0.216s behind Mercedes teammate George Russell who qualified fourth.
But several encounters with the Red Bull Ring’s gravel traps attested to a messy session overall for the seven-time world champion who was all too aware of his underperformance.
"I wasn't in the mix at all the whole session," he admitted "It was pretty disastrous from my point. What can I say? Practice felt good. The car generally felt good.
"I don't think we had the pace obviously to be on pole, but, yeah, very bad laps. Every single one of them."
Perhaps the only positive Hamilton could take away from his scrappy Sprint qualifying was that it didn’t count towards his grip position for Sunday’s race.
"I don't think overtaking is like mega here, but we'll give it our best," he added.
"It's usually not such an eventful race, so I think the focus will be mostly on getting a better qualifying tomorrow."
Contrary to Hamilton, Russell felt reasonably good about his final hot lap in SQ3, but nevertheless admitted to being surprised by his 0.368s gap to pole.
"The soft felt really good, to be honest, and my lap felt really strong," he said. "I was pretty surprised at the gap, but I think I probably over-egged it on my out laps.
"I took too much life out my tyres, on the out lap, and I think probably just took that sort of peak grip away from it.
"That's sort of the only explanation I've got at the moment, because the lap felt strong, probably the best lap of the session for me, yet it was quite a step backwards.
"But P4 is still a great place to be for the fight tomorrow."
©Mercedes
Buoyed by what he felt was a confirmation of Mercedes' improved pace, Russell believed he could be in the mix for a spot on the podium in Saturday’s Sprint.
"Definitely fighting for the podium tomorrow in the sprint," he said. "But obviously eyes on the main race is the most important.
"But it's validation, again, that we're kind of in this mix now. Probably a bit ahead of Ferrari at the moment.
"McLaren still seemed to be a small smidge ahead. But yeah, it's nice to sort of be at the front end more consistently."
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