Lewis Hamilton will start second to Max Verstappen, the 12-point leader, for the second weekend in Sunday's Austrian race; Asked about the prospect of Sunday rain, Hamilton said: "Either way, I need to bring my A game. End of story"; Watch Sunday's race at 2pm live on Sky Sports F1
Sunday 27 June 2021 12:28, UK
Lewis Hamilton says he will need to "bring my A game" to Sunday's race to try and defeat Red Bull's Max Verstappen after his title rival claimed another pole position for the Styrian GP.
For the second weekend in a row at the start of F1 2021's first triple-header, Verstappen topped qualifying by two tenths of a second from Mercedes to underline that the pendulum on single-lap pace has swung away from the reigning world champions to the challengers and current points leaders.
Hamilton, who was third on the Q3 timesheet after a messy final run but moves up to second on the grid courtesy of team-mate Valtteri Bottas' penalty, was at the team's Brackley factory in the short turnaround between races to try and help the team's effort to close the gap to Red Bull.
"Given it everything this week. It has been a long week for me," Hamilton told Sky Sports F1 after qualifying. "Pushed and got generally everything from the car.
"I think I helped advance the team forward this weekend but still we're lacking performance. It was just so hard to match his time. But I'm happy and proud of everyone for all the hard work, we're continuing to push, and we're still there in the fight.
"It's just going to be tough tomorrow to topple the Red Bull."
Attempting three runs instead of the usual two on soft tyres in the final part of qualifying to try and challenge Verstappen, Hamilton needed to find at least 0.226s on his final attempt to have a shot at pole but got caught up with traffic on the end of his out lap.
He overtook four cars between Turns Seven and Nine to try and gain some space to prepare for his lap, but to little avail.
Asked in the press conference if he felt it had cost him in the end, Hamilton replied: "Definitely. Yeah, in hindsight… I mean, I knew that everyone was just going so slow and I was worried about not having the tyres up to temperature but I went on all the dirty lines, so I was just picking up all the dirt on the tyres then a poor exit out of the last corner.
"So already by Turn One I was a tenth down and already by Turn Three I was two tenths down, so no hope in that respect and then naturally tried to over-drive to gather that pace, that time lost, back and it didn't work."
Hamilton says Red Bull have "generally had a quarter of a second on us all weekend" over a lap of the 2.7-mile circuit.
Asked if the possibility of race-day rain could help them out, Hamilton replied: "I don't care either way, if I'm really honest. Either way, tomorrow I need to bring my A game. End of story."
Hamilton trails Verstappen by 12 points in the championship with Red Bull chasing a fourth consecutive victory on Sunday.
Quizzed about their prospects of winning here, Hamilton replied: "Out of pure pace in the dry, it's probably not going to happen, but we need to really just be on top of our game with strategy, trying to keep as close to them as we can, and just see how it turns out."
Fresh from the sixth pole of his Formula 1 career, Max Verstappen joined Sky F1's Anthony Davidson at the SkyPad to analyse the lap that took him there and assess his prospects for another battle against Hamilton and Mercedes.
