Hamilton admits ‘frustration took over’ and reveals set-up call led to penalty

The seven-time world champion struggled for pace as he slipped from fifth to seventh on the road in Sunday’s 71-lap race at the Red Bull Ring. 

A five-second time penalty for repeatedly exceeding track limits compounded his disappointing day further, with Hamilton regularly heard complaining over team radio. 

Hamilton’s complaints led to Mercedes boss Toto Wolff intervening to give his star driver a telling off, firmly saying: “Lewis, the car is bad, we know. Just please drive it.” 

Taking to social media after the race, Hamilton conceded he had lost his cool. 

“There are days when I can say I’m truly proud of myself and days like today when frustration takes over,” he wrote. “In a race it can feel like you’re hanging off a cliff and losing the strength to hold on.

“It’s confusing for us to have such strong performances one day and then be nowhere the next. But when you really care about what you’re doing you brush it off and keep fighting!”

Things would get worse for Hamilton when he was hit with an additional 10-second time penalty following a post-race investigation into track limits violations after a protest by Aston Martin. 

Hamilton’s extra punishment dropped him a position to eighth, one place behind Mercedes teammate George Russell. 

The 38-year-old Briton explained after the race that a front wing set-up change on his Mercedes had played a role in his struggles to stay within the white lines. 

“We took out a lot of front wing,” Hamilton said. “We knew we had a really bad rear-end here so we took out a lot of front wing to try and keep that balance so that we could do a long run, go long.

“And we massively under-egged it. I was, like, almost full lock around the last two corners. Going into turn 10, it was just sliding and I couldn’t do anything about it.”

Hamilton said the issue was partly addressed during his pit stops. 

“Through the stops we then added a lot of wing,” he added. “The car started to slowly come back to at least getting around and staying on-track.”