Lewis Hamilton takes a savage dig at Max Verstappen as he beats him in qualifying at the F1 Austrian GP

Lewis Hamilton has taken a playful dig at Max Verstappen and said that with the Dutch driver starting behind him, he doesn't need to worry about someone taking him out. The qualifying session for the F1 Austrian GP did not go to plan for the Red Bull driver, as a late yellow flag in the third sector meant that he had to slow down on his final push lap.

As a result, Max Verstappen would be starting the race in P7. Lewis Hamilton, on the other hand, had one of his better qualifying sessions, where he was within a tenth of his Ferrari team. The British driver will start the race in P4, while his teammate Charles Leclerc will be in P2.

After the qualifying session, Lewis Hamilton was quite upbeat as the driver was questioned if he was worried about bumping into other drivers at the start of the race, something that tends to happen at the start of the F1 Austrian GP due to the track layout. The Ferrari driver took a dig at Max Verstappen as he said that the Dutch driver is behind him at the start, so he doesn't have to worry about bumping into anyone. He told media, including PlanetF1,

"Max isn’t up there, so…I won’t be bumping into anybody, that’s for sure.”

Lewis Hamilton did not have the best outlook for the weekend after Friday, when the driver admitted that he didn't feel confident about his chances. The P4 was hence a positive, as he said,

“Definitely made some progress overnight. I was much happier with car in P3 and the direction we went, I think, has been really positive. I think edging closer in terms of performance to Charles, who’s really, really used to the Ferrari. He hardly ever changes it."

He added,

“So I think that’s real positive. I think also I had more time in the lap. I was nearly three tenths up going into Turn 6 and I had a massive snap going in and then I came across the line 0.6s up, so that would have put me second. So there’s positives in it, for sure, and I think operationally the team did a really great job today. It’s the best qualifying process operationally that we’ve done, I think.”

Lewis Hamilton feels the upgrades worked for Ferrari

The Austrian GP was also a race where Ferrari brought upgrades to the car with the hopes of closing the gap to the front. When asked to give his verdict on the upgrades, Lewis Hamilton felt that the upgrades did their job and helped in making the car better. He said,

“It definitely helped to extract more from the floors this weekend. It was a really small step. There’s degradation in the floors, so a new floor is always a little bit better. And then on top of that, the step of improvement in performance. So I’m really thankful to the team for back at the factory for the work they’ve put in to make it.”

Lewis Hamilton will be hoping that he can take the strong start in P4 into the race and use it to secure his first podium at Ferrari.