Lewis Hamilton has claimed Max Verstappen’s Red Bull is going “12-13 kph faster” through the high-speed corners than Mercedes at Formula 1’s Austrian Grand Prix.
Verstappen dominated proceedings in qualifying at the Red Bull Ring as the Dutchman ended up with a larger gap to Lando Norris than second spot down to seventh.
Meanwhile, Hamilton has been lagging behind Mercedes team-mate George Russell throughout the weekend and in Q1 conceded over the radio he was lacking pace.
The Briton’s best effort in Q3 would see him prop up in fifth, 0.063s back from Russell in third, but more than five-tenths behind Verstappen’s pole position benchmark.
Hamilton has revealed that most of the considerable deficit on the 64-second lap emanated from Red Bull’s superior competitiveness across the high-speed sections.
“We’ve made changes since qualifying and the car was better,” Hamilton said. “No real major issues.
“We were down a lot in the high-speed compared to Max. A lot. It’s insane how much faster they are in the high speed. They’re around 12-13 kph faster.
Asked whether Mercedes had made compromises on the W15’s set-up that contributed to that comprehensive margin in the high-speed, Hamilton replied: “Nope.
“We just don’t have enough downforce. We haven’t made any compromises. That’s all we’ve got.”
Hamilton, who took a podium at the previous round in Spain, has conceded that Verstappen’s return to recording crushing margins has issued a setback to Mercedes.
Asked whether there were other areas Mercedes was missing to challenge Red Bull, Hamilton responded “I don’t know the answer. Honestly don’t know the answer.
“If I could take a piece of downforce and chuck it on the back, I would. But… that’s not how it goes. And we just got to continue to work on improvement.
“But the notion of us potentially winning a race this year, when you get a half-second gap like today, it makes it a little bit further down the road. But we’ve got to keep pushing.”
The seven-time F1 champion also pondered the reasons behind the German marque appearing to regress relative to the competition as a race weekend progresses.
Pressed on whether he was surprised with Verstappen’s advantage amid the convergence seen in recent rounds, he answered: “Not really. I wouldn’t say I’m surprised.
“I think we always seem to be quick in P1, in practice, we’re always fast.
“I don’t know if it’s fuel, if it’s engine strategy that we use and the others don’t use, and then everyone else gets faster and we don’t.”
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