Hou start from second on the grid and have a chance to put the man of the moment, Max Verstappen, in a fight this afternoon, but it was a dejected Lewis Hamilton who spoke to the media after qualifying at the Red Bull Ring on Saturday.
The whole week the Mercedes was slower than the Dutchman’s Red Bull and the seven-time world champion seemed less confident that he could lead the fight against Verstappen, who is again on pole.
After qualifying in third (his teammate Valtteri Bottas qualified second but received a three-place penalty for a pit lane spin), Hamilton was anything but optimistic ahead of today’s race.
“It wasn’t the best session, but still in the front row after the penalty. Max has had a quarter of a second behind us all weekend, ”said Hamilton. “I don’t think we have the brute pace to overtake him, that’s for sure. Maybe we can just keep up.
“I’m going into the race for a fight and I’ll give it my all. We may have a surprise. Maybe it’s raining. ”
The probability of rain is said to be 80 percent – but the weather is notoriously difficult to predict in the picturesque Styrian mountains. Rain was forecast for Saturday, but the sky never opened and instead a wonderfully hot day occurred. In addition, like Hamilton, Verstappen is a good rainy weather driver. But there is hardly any doubt about the dejected atmosphere in the Hamilton camp, which has now been without pole in four races.
Elsewhere, Lando Norris is impressive as he qualified fourth – he will start third on the grid – half a second faster than his seven-time McLaren teammate Daniel Ricciardo, who only qualified 13th.
“For me, I’ll do my best to get to the top and have an orange car in the lead, but I won’t ruin my own race,” said the Briton.
Stay here to see how he and Hamilton can fare against the always impressive Verstappen.
The post Grand Prix of Styria 2021 live: Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton compete again first appeared on monter-une-startup.
