Hamilton suffers brake disc failure in final Austria practice

Lewis Hamilton suffered a fresh setback in final practice for the Austrian Grand Prix on Saturday morning when he suffered a brake disc failure on his Mercedes Formula 1 car.

Hamilton was already on the back foot at the Red Bull Ring after a gearbox change sparked a five-place grid drop for the race, only to then hit more trouble in FP3.

Heading into the heavy braking zone at Turn 3, Hamilton's front-right brake encountered a problem that made it exude plumes of black smoke and caused the Briton to go straight on at the corner.

Hamilton nursed his car back to the pits where Mercedes then conducted a full investigation into the problem, finding that his front-right brake disc had failed.

"It was a problem with the team side of the brake system for Lewis, i.e. not an issue with components supplied to us by a third party," a spokesperson from the team said.

"The result was a disc failure but not caused by an issue with the disc.

"The relevant parts will be replaced for qualifying."

Due to his grid penalty, Hamilton can start no higher than sixth in Austria, with qualifying set to start at 1pm BST.