Hamilton: I don’t understand why Gasley came my way

Mercedes scored points in Saturday’s two-car sprint at Spielberg, with George Russell finishing fourth and Lewis Hamilton eighth. After the finish, both riders noted that they were unhappy with the car’s pace over a long distance.

George Russell (4th): “First of all I would like to thank everyone in the team who restored my car today. Everyone has put a lot of effort into this, so it’s great that we were able to earn points.

Speaking of speed, the delay was greater than we expected. I lost 13 seconds in 23 laps, that’s almost half a second per lap. There is a lot of work to be done in the evenings to understand why we have lost so much momentum.

Small things can play a big part – it’s not easy to control the condition of the tires, and tomorrow a different approach to downforce settings will come into play. There is no doubt that we have a lot of work to do.”

Lewis Hamilton (8th): “I am grateful that I was able to finish today. The team worked hard last night and this morning to restore the car. Thanks to them I’m glad I got the car back safe and sound in the pits.

I didn’t start in the best way – before the first corner, Pierre Gasly started shifting in my direction. I don’t understand why riders do this when there is so much space on the right. I couldn’t do anything. Then the same thing happened in the third corner with Williams and Red Bull. My car suffered some minor damage, but I was able to continue driving.

After I had to overtake rivals. The car didn’t have enough speed on the straights, so I had to wait until I was in the DRS zone to overtake rivals. That’s why it took me a few laps to overtake Mick Schumacher. I hope we do better in the race – fingers crossed!”