Sir Lewis Hamilton has work to do to get himself to the front both in this race and in the seasons standings, with the Mercedes driver starting in fourth at the Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday.
Max Verstappen has an 18-point lead heading into the ninth race of the season at the Red Bull Ring and starts in pole, after finishing just 0.048 seconds clear of Lando Norris in qualifying – with the 21-year-old McLaren driver taking his highest-ever placing on the start grid with that second place.
Sergio Perez, Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate, is on third ahead of Hamilton, whose own team-mate Valtteri Bottas starts sixth.
Hamilton isn’t expecting to pass the chequered flag in first place and sounded pessimistic about closing the gap to Verstappen, suggesting he’ll have an “easy” time of things in Austria.
“Is a win out of the question? I would say so,” Hamilton said. “In terms of pure pace, it is definitely out of the question. It will be an easy cruise win for Max. I have to get ahead of at least Perez and try to limit the damage. It will be even more of a challenge than it was last week. We have tried everything to get more out of the car but we continue to lack pace. We have really got to find performance in the following races.” Follow the build-up and race at the Austrian Grand Prix here:
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Max Verstappen on pole again for Austrian Grand Prix with Lando Norris second