Lewis Hamilton was left frustrated with his track position at the end of the Sprint Shooutout in Austria after he exited the session in the first segment.
The Mercedes driver will start the sprint race on Sunday from 18th on the grid, ahead of former team-mate Valtteri Bottas and Williams’ Logan Sargeant.
Hamilton was unable to find a suitable track position and was forced to abandon his hot lap when he was overtaken by Max Verstappen, who was finishing his attempt.
“Just [the] timing wasn’t right,” Hamilton said, speaking after the session.
“The sprint race doesn’t really matter anyway. Today I’ll just have some fun from the back. It is what it is. I don’t really feel any way about it to be honest. I wish I was still out there, but not today.”
When asked if he would spark a conversation with Mercedes over the difficult result, Hamilton said: “There’s nothing really to say.
“We’ll focus on our job today. It could’ve easily been much further up there but I’ll just have a bit of fun at the back.”
Mercedes’ day became even worse when a hydraulic issue on George Russell’s car denied him a spot in SQ3.
The Briton will start Saturday’s sprint race from 15th on the grid.
“Not too sure of the ins and outs [of the failure] but it’s a shame,” Russell said. “The pace was looking strong, considering we were on the Medium tyre, it was P4, P5 in Q1.
“There’s no reason why we couldn’t have a good qualifying session today, especially with a new set of Softs that we had going into Q3.
“I think top five would’ve definitely been on the cards. It’s just not our weekend. It’s one of those things, when it rains it pours.”
