Ferrari were the best of the race behind McLaren at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Charles Leclerc secured his fourth podium finish of the season and was followed home by Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton.
Hamilton has now broken his personal record for the longest streak of Grand Prix results without a podium finish.
He hasn’t stood on the rostrum since last year’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, but there were plenty of reasons for the seven-time drivers’ champion to be happy.
Hamilton recorded his best qualifying result of the season, excluding Sprint events, to start on the second row alongside Oscar Piastri.
Kimi Antonelli’s collision with Max Verstappen was incredibly close to taking him out, but after coming out on top in a duel with ex-teammate George Russell, Hamilton could concentrate on running his own race.
He was left in no man’s land for much of the Austrian Grand Prix, and at one point, he wasn’t happy with Ferrari’s decision to bring him into the pits for the final stop.
Apart from that, Hamilton praised his team’s work throughout the weekend, doing absent team principal Fred Vasseur proud.
However, he couldn’t help but air one last frustration when speaking to race engineer Riccardo Adami after the race.
Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images
Lewis Hamilton admits he needs to ‘figure’ out his lack of pace at the Austrian Grand Prix
Ferrari rushed an update to the Austrian Grand Prix in the hopes of improving the car’s floor.
Hamilton admitted after the race that he thought it was only a minor update, but it seemed to give Ferrari the boost they needed to jump ahead of Red Bull and Mercedes in the pecking order.
Leclerc and Hamilton comfortably drove away from Russell during the race, and we’ll never know what pace Verstappen had with both his qualifying and Grand Prix efforts scuppered for reasons beyond his control.
Hamilton said on the team radio after the race: “Great job today, guys. What a great weekend result for us.
“I’m really proud of you, let’s keep pushing. I didn’t really have the pace today; I need to figure that out. Thanks anyway.”
Adami: “The pace was there, I think. Many things to manage, but we’ll go through everything together and we’ll push.”
Charles Leclerc and George Russell agree on Lewis Hamilton’s first six months at Ferrari
After 11 Grand Prix weekends, Hamilton has 91 points and sits sixth in the drivers’ championship.
Leclerc has increased his lead over his new teammate to 28 points in Austria, but is still waiting to secure his first victory of the season.
Hamilton can at least claim to have broken that duck when he came home in P1 during the Sprint Race in China, but a visit to the podium has to be his next aim, and the upcoming British Grand Prix would be the perfect time to end that wait.
Russell and Leclerc agree on Hamilton’s start to life at Ferrari, believing that he’s the greatest driver in the history of the sport.
It will do Hamilton’s confidence levels plenty of good hearing that from Leclerc after they started working more closely together, even if results haven’t quite gone his way yet.
