Hamilton-Max

Picture Credit: Twitter

As the stage gets set for an exciting Austrian GP 2021, there is a very contrasting atmosphere in the camp of both title contenders - Red Bull and Mercedes. While Red Bull are having a perfect weekend so far in front of their home fans as Max and Perez took P1 and P3 respectively in qualifying yesterday, things did not go as per plan for the dynamic Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas as they qualified P4 and P5 respectively. After a very disappointing Saturday, the Brit has also admitted that he has no chance of winning the race on Sunday.

We will try to limit the damage this weekend: Hamilton

With Hamilton 18 points behind Verstappen and Mercedes 40 points off Red Bull, the defending champion believes that it is going to be a difficult weekend and his aim would be to limit the damage as much as possible. He has ruled himself out of contention for a race win as he predicted an easy win for Max.

He said, "Those guys (Red Bull) have got two cars to get through in front, and they’ve got three-tenths on us – I think they’ve improved their car again for this weekend – so I would say that’s an easy cruise win for Max. I think for us it’s to try and see if we can get ahead of Perez and try to limit the damage this weekend."

I have no idea: Hamilton on what went wrong in qualifying

Reflecting on a disappointing Saturday, Hamilton said that he has no idea about what went wrong during qualifying. “I don’t have an answer for it; we just weren’t quick. We just weren’t any quicker. Put in the time, worked so hard to improve the car, but this is our underlying pace. I don’t know if they (Red Bull) have improved the car again this weekend, I have no idea, but we haven’t, and we’ve just got to keep working."

Starting the race at P4, Hamilton said that his race in Austria will be with the two guys ahead of him (Lando Norris and Sergio Perez). While Verstappen would surely know that the race won't be as easy as the Brit has predicted and things could get quite exciting at Red Bull Ring. The race begins at 6:30 PM IST on July 4, Sunday.