Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton fell to 32 points behind Max Verstappen in the Driver's Championship in Austria, as a result of finishing fourth place after a car problem. Hamilton had been running in second place and comfortable after the pit stops, but his pace fell away as a result of some damage to his car after going over the kerbs at Turn 10. His drop in pace allowed teammate Valtteri Bottas and McLaren's Lando Norris catch up and pass him. "Well, I already said before the race that it'd be very hard to beat Max [Verstappen] but obviously frustrating to lose so much downforce in the rear of the car and not be able to hold on to second place. So a lot of points lost today," Hamilton told Sky Sports F1 afterwards. "I wasn't going over the kerbs any more than anyone else so I have no idea where it happened. But a lot of damage." Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said the team have to have a close look at the damage to figure out what happened to the W12. "The damage happened at 10, Turn 10 over the kerb," Wolff told Sky Sports F1. "I don't think he was particularly running too hard over the kerb, it's just the part that fell away. And we looked at the loads and they were the same than in the laps before so we need to find out why that happened." With Hamilton falling to fourth on track, he pitted again for another set of hard tyres to get to the chequered flag, and felt he lost out on an easy second place and the extra points he should have scored. "I would have been second. I was second when all of a sudden, it broke," he said. "It would have been an easy second, generally, but not able to catch the guys ahead. "So we've got a lot of work to do. We need all hands on deck, which I know they already are and they've bought a lot of upgrades clearly over these past few races, and we haven't brought any so we've got to bring some, find as much performance as possible. Otherwise, this will be the result, most often."
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