Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes “underestimated” Ferrari’s pace prior to qualifying in Austria, quipping it is being “killed” by its rivals on the straights.
Charles Leclerc led the way through practice and stormed to pole position, as Ferrari utilised its season-long advantage on full-throttle sections.
Hamilton, meanwhile, qualified in second position, two places in front of title rival and Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas.
“For us we’ve been chipping away at it,” he said. “From the get go we noticed a deficit with the Ferraris, we thought it would be a lot closer than it was, we picked out more time in FP3 and going into qualifying, we definitely underestimated how fast they would be.
“I think ultimately on the straights they kill us on the straights, they’ve got that extra bit of power here that helps and I guess they’ve managed to figure out how the car works on medium and high-speed corners.
“For us the car feels good, just can’t do more on straights, I don’t know why it is we lost time on straights but that’s what we’re working towards.”
Hamilton is currently under investigation by the stewards for allegedly impeding Kimi Raikkonen in Q1.
“Basically I saw one of the team’s cars came by and I was braking for the hairpin, Turn 3, and the other one coming so I tried to go straight on and get out of the way because didn’t want to meet in a corner,” he said.
“I don’t think I met in a corner but I might have put him off, so that wasn’t ideal and I wasn’t aware that car was coming, so [it was] not the easiest.”
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