Lewis Hamilton had no answers for the pace Max Verstappen had at the Austrian Grand Prix. After finishing over 35 seconds from Lewis Hamilton at the Styrian Grand Prix, the Dutch driver completed his first career grand slam to extend his championship lead over the Briton.

Hamilton, on the hand, had an awful outing at the Austrian Grand Prix, starting and finishing in P4. He also got damage to his car, which limited his ability to catch the charging Red Bull. And to make matters worse, he had to let his teammate Valtteri Bottas past him in the race.

In his radio message, the seven-time world champion can be heard asking his team, if he is racing his teammate.

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Are we really racing each other: Lewis Hamilton on his team radio

The Mercedes driver had picked up damage to his W12 when he was running in P2, which enabled his teammate to catch him up. So, it left the British driver a bit surprised when he saw Bottas so close to him in the race.

“Are we really racing each other?” asked Hamilton on his team radio. His race engineer Pete Bonnington replied, “We asked Valtteri not to race you at the moment. But he’s going to be under pressure from Norris.”

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But when it became apparent to the seven-time world champion that he is losing time, he let Bottas by.

“I am gonna let him [Bottas] by,” said Hamilton. Bonnington instructed Lewis to not lose any time fighting with Valtteri. “So invert into turn three. let Valtteri pass into turn three,” said Bono.

Lando Norris also passed Hamilton later in the race to take P3 and relegate the Mercedes driver out of podium places.

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Sprint Qualifying at Silverstone could provide chances for Mercedes

Mercedes have had to make changes and bring upgrades to their cars to challenge Red Bull. The Austrian team have won five consecutive races and the Silver Arrows have found it hard to answer their pace. Thus, they would look to bounce back at the British Grand Prix next week.

Fortunately, there seem to be several things that could potentially give Mercedes the advantage over Red Bull at the next race. In addition to Silverstone being Hamilton’s home race and possible upgrades to the car, it will also be the first weekend of three sprint race qualifying races in F1.

The new format could provide new life to the world champions as they look to get back to winning ways. As reported by Planetf1, Lewis Hamilton believes that there would be some overtaking in the sprint qualifying.

Can Hamilton win at Silverstone? Comment below to let us know.