Lewis Hamilton suffers Austrian Grand Prix blow as Mercedes blame Max Verstappen

01 July 2023 , 10:22

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Lewis Hamilton had an awful Saturday morning in Austria (Image: Getty Images)

Lewis Hamilton will start the Austrian Grand Prix Sprint race from near the back of the grid after a nightmare qualifying session for the Brit.

The Sprint format returns for this weekend and, for the second time, the final practice session has been scrapped. Instead, the drivers now have a second qualifying session to set the grid for the Sprint race later on Saturday.

And Hamilton will now have his work cut out to reach the points positions in that session later today, as he could only set the 18th fastest time of that second qualifying.

He had briefly topped the timesheets during SQ1. However, that lap time was deleted by the Formula 1 stewards as he was adjudged to have exceeded track limits.

Hamilton tried to complete one more lap to get himself out of danger. However, he came across traffic on track which slowed him down and, in the end, he simply drove into the pit lane and chose not to complete that lap.

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As he stopped outside the garage, he put his hands on his steering wheel and clearly looked exasperated. After the session, Mercedes explained that traffic had prevented the Brit from completing his last lap and pointed the finger at Max Verstappen.

The Dutchman had been alongside his Mercedes rival heading into the first corner. As a result, Hamilton had to negotiate that corner more slowly than usual and, eventually, aborted the lap.

Mercedes accused Verstappen of blocking Hamilton on his final SQ1 flying lap (Sky Sports)

Speaking on Sky Sports, pit lane reporter Ted Kravitz told viewers: "According to [Hamilton's] team, there was a lap deleted for track limits and then Lewis got caught up with Max Verstappen as Max was finishing a lap and Lewis was starting it. The team are saying he was caught up with Max which delayed him. So it was really track position in the end."

To make matter worse for Mercedes, George Russell also had a session to forget. The younger Brit negotiated SQ1 without too much difficulty, but suffered a problem on his car which meant the end of his on-track running for the session.

In a statement, Mercedes said: "Russell will not be running in this qualifying segment owing to an hydraulic problem requiring a steering rack change."

Daniel Moxon