Lewis Hamilton claims third podium in a row after recovering from eighth on the grid in Austrian GP; "I really feel great. I'm so happy," says Hamilton; F1 returns in two weeks in France with all sessions live on Sky Sports F1 from Friday July 22
Monday 11 July 2022 11:02, UK
Lewis Hamilton was delighted to end a difficult Austrian GP with a another 2022 podium, praising Mercedes for their work to salvage his weekend and for their car improvements to "chip away" at rivals.
Hamilton had a rollercoaster weekend in Spielberg, starting on a high with strong qualifying pace but then crashing out in Q3, and only gaining one position to eighth for the Sprint.
But the seven-time world champion enjoyed a fine race day, making his way up to fourth and then claiming a third podium in a row after Carlos Sainz's engine fire in the Ferrari.
With George Russell following in fourth, Mercedes out-scored both Red Bull and Ferrari and Hamilton told Sky Sports F1: "This is a great recovery for us as a team. It's really good points."
He added: "I really feel great. I'm so happy with today, especially after such a difficult start to the weekend.
"We were looking so good in qualifying and then I crashed the damn thing.
"Getting your head back around that, knowing the team worked so hard to build a new car for me... that affects everything, it affects our budget and so many people that have to build new parts.
"That's never a great feeling but to get back up there and get great points for the team is just a small token of my appreciation."
Mercedes are slowly but surely returning to contention in 2022, following up their best weekend of the season at the British GP with excellent damage limitation at an Austrian GP track where they normally struggle.
While Hamilton finished 40 seconds behind race winner Charles Leclerc, he said: "We've just go to keep our heads down and keep chipping away. We are slowly eating into the guys ahead, but they are still pretty quick."
Team boss Toto Wolff concurred: "We're slowly getting there, we just need to keep chipping away
"We are missing a few tenths here and there. I think we've halved the gap in the last few months, we understand better, but we are still third and fourth and in the middle of nowhere.
"If I tried to take positives on race pace, if we were able to start in the top six probably we could have held on to Max
"It's good because we are starting to see we are chipping away at the leaders. We want to make this a blip and not sort of a long cycle."
F1 2022 heads to France in two weeks. Join Sky Sports F1 across the weekend of July 22-24 with all sessions live.
