Lewis Hamilton hails “best day operationally” for Ferrari after Austria F1 qualifying

Lewis Hamilton believes Ferrari delivered the best performance from an operational standpoint in qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix, as both cars secured a spot inside the top four.

While McLaren’s Lando Norris was in a different league in Q3 as he took pole position by over half a second, Charles Leclerc booked a spot on the front row of the grid and Hamilton ended up just a tenth behind in fourth place.

This represented the joint-best qualifying result for Leclerc this year, while fourth place marked the first time Hamilton had qualified on the second row of the grid in F1 2025.

Hamilton praised Ferrari for executing everything perfectly in the final part of qualifying, saying he could have even challenged Leclerc for second place had he not lost time with a mistake at Turn 6.

“We definitely made some progress overnight,” he said. “I’m much happier with the car in Q3 and with the direction we went. It was really positive.

“I’m edging closer in terms of performance of Charles, who's really, really used to the car,  he hardly ever changes anything, so that's really positive.  

“Also, I had more time in the lap. I was nearly 3 tenths up going into Turn 6 and I had a massive snap going in. and then I came across the line six tenths down. So that would have put me second.

“I think operationally the team did a really good job today. It's the best qualifying process, operation that we've done.”

Asked to elaborate on that, Hamilton added: “Operationally, the guys in the garage always do an amazing job, but just how calm the guys were, the head engineers on the pit wall [were].

“Their timing was spot on and when they got us into the pit lane, the gaps that have given us, staying out of the traffic management, not getting penalties for the traffic here, the turnarounds were just really well.”

Ferrari has brought a sizeable upgrade to Austria, with the highlight of the new package being the revised floor.

Hamilton believes the updated floor design played a role in Ferrari outqualifying both Mercedes and Red Bull in Austria.

“The guys, they've definitely been able to extract more from the floor,” he said. “It was a really small but there's degradation in floors, so a new floor is always a little bit better.

“And then on top of that, the step of improvement in performance and so I'm really thankful to the team back at the factory for the work they've been able to bring.”