Mercedes has been left frustrated with the problems they encountered during the F1 Sprint Shootout in Austria for both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell. Hamilton suffered a shock exit during SQ1 when he had a lap time deleted for track limits and then found himself in the drop zone in the dying moments of the shortened session. On his final attempt, the seven-time World Champion caught traffic, preventing him from improving his lap and forcing him to start the F1 Sprint from P18 on the grid. "[The] Sprint race doesn't really matter anyway," said Hamilton. "We'll just have some fun from the back, it is what it is."
Russell: Top five was definitely on the cards
Russell suffered a hydraulic failure at the end of SQ1 and did not take any further part in the SQ2 session after the team elected to change his steering rack. He believed that a top five was "definitely on the cards" but conceded that it has been a tough weekend so far after qualifying in P11 on Friday for the main Grand Prix. "We had a hydraulic failure so I'm not too sure of the ins and outs, the pace was looking strong," said Russell. "[There is] no reason why we couldn't have had a better qualifying today, especially with the new set of Softs we had going into SQ3. "Top five would have been definitely on the cards so it's just not our weekend." Russell said the team will be in damage limitation mode for the weekend, after it was clear from their pace on Friday that Ferrari had managed to make a step forward with their upgrades. "It's one of those things of when it rains it pours. So we'll see what we can do this afternoon and tomorrow and definitely try to match it next week."
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