Hamilton ready for battle with Verstappen: "Race is going to be a lot closer"

The Mercedes drivers were in a class of their own during qualifying at the Red Bull Ring. Both Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton were the only ones to achieve a time under 1:03.0, with Max Verstappen more than half a second behind. For the race, however, Hamilton does take the Dutchman into account.

Red Bull Racing chose to send Verstappen out in the second part of qualifying on the medium tire. Because he was able to qualify for the last part, he can start the race on that tyre as well.

"That's going to make it very difficult for us," says Hamilton in front of the Formula 1 camera afterwards. "The degradation will be high compared to what we saw in free practice, because it wasn't that hot at the time. So the race is going to be a lot more close compared to qualifying. So we'll definitely have to put up a fight."

The expectation is that one pit stop will be enough for the drivers. This means that Verstappen will probably drive for a very long time and then try to make a difference in the final stage on a set of new softs.