Hamilton did not expect such a gap against the competition

Given favorite for pole, Lewis Hamilton could only bow to the performance of his teammate Valtteri Bottas, author of a sufficient reference on his first lap in Q3 to sign the first pole position of 2020 in Austria.

Despite the Finn going off the track in his second attempt (having caused a yellow flag on which Hamilton had been summoned for not having slowed down enough, before being laundered), the Brit admitted, a good sport, that the dust released by his teammate's passage through the gravel had not bothered him more than that.

The world champion especially wanted to remember the overall performance of the team Mercedes, half a second faster than the competition.

« We certainly didn't expect to have this gap, but it's just a real demonstration of all the great work that everyone at the factory continues to do, like Hamilton.

Valtteri did a fantastic job today with his lap. I don't really know what else to say. We thought we were definitely fast enough to fight for the top places, but there were different performances among the other teams: sometimes very fast, sometimes a little further.

Yes, so this is the true representation of the performance of our car and we plan to try to improve it. »

A W11 which notably makes use of Two-Axis Steering deemed legal by the Austrian commissioners, a system which seems to offer interesting potential for the single-seaters of Hamilton and Bottas.

“The adjustments you are able to make, you feel them, describes the British. The legality is clearly proven and is something we are proud of.

So it hasn't been used massively, but we'll understand it more and more as we go along. » Enough to give the competition a cold sweat.