Lewis Hamilton smiling with an inset of Max Verstappen looking unimpressed
Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen: the best of enemies
Lewis Hamilton has quipped that he “won’t be bumping into anybody” at the start of the Austrian Grand Prix as Max Verstappen “isn’t up there” at the front.
It comes just weeks after Verstappen, the Red Bull driver and reigning four-time World Champion, was involved in an ugly collision with George Russell’s Mercedes in Spain.
Lewis Hamilton makes Max Verstappen quip ahead of Austrian Grand Prix
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
Hamilton enjoyed one of his strongest qualifying sessions so far with Ferrari on Saturday in Austria to secure fourth on the grid, putting himself within a tenth of team-mate Charles Leclerc, who will start second.
The seven-time World Champion’s result came on the weekend Ferrari introduced a new floor to the SF-25 car with the hope of getting its disappointing campaign back on track.
Verstappen, a five-time winner at the Red Bull Ring, was left stranded in seventh after yellow flags for Pierre Gasly’s spinning Alpine compromised his final Q3 lap.
The Red Bull driver remains on the brink of a one-race ban after making contact with Russell at the Spanish Grand Prix, where he appeared to deliberately make contact with the Mercedes, earlier this month.
Two penalty points are set to be wiped from Verstappen’s tally on Monday, when his clash with McLaren driver Lando Norris in last year’s Austrian Grand Prix falls out of his 12-month window.
Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com after qualifying in Austria, Hamilton could not resist making a quip at Verstappen’s expense as he looked ahead to the start.
Put to him that the Austrian GP tends to be a race in which “people bump into each other” fighting over the lead, Hamilton joked: “Max isn’t up there, so…
“I won’t be bumping into anybody, that’s for sure.”
Hamilton’s comment comes after Russell quipped that he would use Verstappen’s disciplinary situation to his advantage after qualifying in Canada – a comment Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal, took issue with.
Hamilton’s fine qualifying result came after he struggled in Friday practice at the Red Bull Ring, telling his Ferrari race engineer Riccardo Adami over team radio at one stage during FP2: “For some reason I’ve just got no pace, mate.”
The 40-year-old revealed that the team’s changes overnight were key to his turnaround, describing Austria as his most efficient qualifying session since he joined Ferrari.
He said: “Definitely made some progress overnight.
“I was much happier with car in P3 and the direction we went, I think, has been really positive.
“I think edging closer in terms of performance to Charles, who’s really, really used to the Ferrari. He hardly ever changes it.
“So I think that’s real positive. I think also I had more time in the lap.
“I was nearly three tenths up going into Turn 6 and I had a massive snap going in and then I came across the line 0.6s up, so that would have put me second.
“So there’s positives in it, for sure, and I think operationally the team did a really great job today.
“It’s the best qualifying process operationally that we’ve done, I think.”
Pressed on the impact of Ferrari’s revised floor, he added: “It definitely helped to extract more from the floors this weekend.
“It was a really small step.
“There’s degradation in the floors, so a new floor is always a little bit better. And then on top of that, the step of improvement in performance.
“So I’m really thankful to the team for back at the factory for the work they’ve put in to make it.”
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