Hamilton: Mercedes lacking ‘raw pace’ to overtake Red Bull

Hamilton had no answer to title rival Max Verstappen’s speed in qualifying in Spielberg as the Red Bull driver stormed to his third pole position of the season in commanding style.

The seven-time world champion made a mistake on his final Q3 run and ended up 0.226s down on Verstappen’s benchmark, while he was also outpaced by Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas.

But Hamilton will join Verstappen on the front row after Bottas’ three-place grid drop for his practice spin is applied.

“They have been so fast this weekend, been giving it absolutely everything and it just wasn’t the greatest of sessions,” Hamilton said.

“But nevertheless, it’s still the front row obviously after the penalty. I did everything we could, so we’re going to race tomorrow for a fight.

“Generally they had a quarter of a second on us all weekend, and I think we have managed to eke closer in qualifying but in race trim yesterday, they were one-quarter of a second ahead of us most of the time.

“It will be interesting to see if we can manage it. I don’t think we have raw pace to overtake them, that’s for sure, but we might just be able to keep up.”

Hamilton has not won since the Spanish Grand Prix in May, while Red Bull heads into Sunday’s race in Austria off the back of a hat-trick of victories, with Verstappen looking to convert pole into his fourth win of 2021 in Austria.

“I am going to be giving it everything obviously, but I’m just talking about pure pace,” Hamilton added.

“But maybe tomorrow we will be surprised, maybe it rains. Who knows?”