Lewis Hamilton comes under fire from rival F1 boss at Australian GP – ‘No need for that’ | F1 | Sport
Lewis Hamilton has been criticised by Haas team principal Guenther Steiner for impacting Nico Hulkenberg’s qualifying session ahead of the Australian Grand Prix. Steiner has blamed the Mercedes star for Hulkenberg’s failure to build on an impressive start to the session in Melbourne.
Hulkenberg, who finished in an impressive 10th, had tried to create some space ahead of his car to complete a late fast lap. However, Hamilton appeared to move close to the back of the German’s car and they got in each other’s way.
Steiner has blamed the Briton for the incident after admitting he was both ‘unhappy and happy’ with Haas’s qualifying results.
The 57-year-old said: “I’m unhappy and happy today. There could’ve been more for us today because on the last run with Nico it wasn’t an ideal lap, down to a few circumstances.
“There was no need for Hamilton to be so close to Nico at the start of his last fast lap – and trying to get past him – as Lewis wasn’t on a fast lap.
“Then again, I’m happy because tomorrow we start P10 and P14 and everything seems to be going to plan and I think our race pace is good. Tomorrow, the mission is to get points.”
Mercedes enjoyed a much better day in Australia than they had in the two previous race meetings this year. Hamilton finished third behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and team-mate George Russell in second.
But team boss Toto Wolff has played down the Silver Arrows’ chances of a win in Sunday’s event, saying: “We just got it together now over the weekend. Just grinded away with putting performance in the car in terms of the right mechanical setup and I am happy.
“I think we learnt through the session and we have been open-minded and we changed the plan. I think it is good starting second and third. It has been a while since we had no one in front of our line in P2.
“We will just try to make the best out of it. Verstappen is in a league of his own but maybe we can then slot in.”
Hamilton insisted earlier this week that Red Bull have the fastest car he’s ever seen. The 38-year-old believes it could take all year for Mercedes to get close to Verstappen.
He said: “If you look at the Red Bull, it is just going to continue to evolve most likely. Some cars do plateau in terms of performance. At some point it can’t just keep going. But maybe it can.
“They have a great team around them and I am sure they will continue to add downforce. We just have to make sure when we do make the change hopefully the drop isn’t too far and hopefully it is going to take us the rest of the year for sure to potentially close that gap.”
