Kimi Raikkonen has been promoted to fourth with Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo fifth.
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A rain shower sent the cars into the pits late in the second session and the biggest action came right at the end of the third session, after the track dried and the cars switched to softer, faster tires.
Behind him, Jenson Button advanced through to Q3 for the first time since Abu Dhabi 2014 – a race many pondered as potentially his last for McLaren – while the six drivers knocked out were Esteban Gutierrez (Haas), Wehrlein in a career-best 12th in qualifying, Gutierrez’s teammate Romain Grosjean, Fernando Alonso in the second McLaren, then Carlos Sainz Jr. and Perez. Nico Rosberg was again quickest at the Red Bull Ring, though Lewis Hamilton closed within two hundredths of a second of Rosberg. It’s incredible how fast it dries up. It was very, very slippery, but it was drying up corner by corner.
Rosberg was lucky just to get on the track after a crash in the morning practice left his auto badly damaged, including a broken suspension, a common problem over the past two days.
LEWIS Hamilton fears his world championship defence is in danger of being undermined by engine failures and grid penalties as he seeks to cut Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg’s 24-points lead. He has five wins this season.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, the surprise victor in Barcelona, broke his suspension and front wing while running wide and hitting a yellow curb.
“We’ve seen a couple of incidents already – how many more is it going to take before a auto ends up in the wall and someone gets hurt?” But Hamilton was critical of the curbs nevertheless.
“With hindsight, I wasn’t taking enough risk but, then again, I think all three cars that were ahead were taking more risks, and they were behind me on track so arguably had better track conditions as well”. “But, for me, looking at it, those yellow kerbs are quite risky”. We had the supersoft available I think they perhaps saw – I’m guessing – I’m assuming they saw that the Ferraris had gone out and they thought we might try to go out and see if we could do a time on it, even though we think there is a time delta between the two. “But equally I could and should have taken more risks”.
The world champion, who spun into the gravel in P1, says that although he knows “where the time is” around the lap to make the difference, he is yet to deliver it.
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“We do not have the best auto or the best engine, but we know our weaknesses and we’re working on it”, said Vettel. “It mattered when you crossed the line and how much risk you took, so for sure I underperformed”.
