Hamilton expects Red Bull threat in Austria

Hamilton expects Red Bull threat in Austria

Martin Macdonald

Tuesday 26 June 2018 11:20

Lewis Hamilton is fresh off an impressive French Grand Prix victory at the weekend which was the start of Formula One's first ever triple-header of a GP in three consecutive weekends. With Austria coming up next, the 2017 world champion expects Red Bull to be a major threat.

Hamilton led from pole to flag on Sunday and eventually claimed the victory without much incident, with Max Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen comfortably far behind.

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The win put him once again ahead of Sebastian Vettel in the 2018 rankings, but thinks the next GP in Austria will be a sterner test, particularly if Red Bull are competitive.

“I think Austria should be a fairly decent track,” Hamilton said following his win.

“It’s been a decent track for us in the past, so I don’t see why it should be any different now. I think the car should be good there. I think the Red Bulls have been particularly quick there in the past because it’s quite a good downforce circuit, so it’ll be interesting.

“As you’re seeing, it’s great that our cars are quite close in qualifying nowadays, but positioning is everything really in qualifying there because at that track you can’t really overtake.

"Even though you’ve got those long straights, it’s very, very difficult to overtake because you can’t follow another car through Turn One. It’s going to be about who qualifies where, isn’t it?”