How Ferrari's Austrian upturn has put a smile on Hamilton's face

Hamilton was encouraged after a solid P4 in qualifying at the Red Bull Ring

Lewis Hamilton hasn’t always been in an upbeat mood after qualifying sessions or races this season but a strong performance in Austria put a smile on his face on Saturday afternoon.

He wasn’t too happy with the car on Friday, but after overnight changes he was a solid fifth in FP3. Come qualifying he was seventh in Q1 and eighth in Q2 before putting in his best lap of the weekend to claim P4 on the grid.

Even that wasn’t quite perfect, with Lewis highlighting a snap in Turn 6 that potentially cost him a front row slot alongside Lando Norris.

There have been false dawns before, but there are at least signs that things are starting to come together for the seven-times World Champion

“Definitely made some progress overnight,” he said when I asked him about his session. “I was much happier with the car in P3, and the direction we went I think has been really positive.

“And I think edging closer in terms of performance to Charles, who's really, really used to the car. He hardly ever changes it. And so I think that's real positive.

“I think also my I had more time in the lap. I was nearly three-tenths up going into Turn 6, and I had a massive snap going in, and then I came across the line 0.06 up. So that would have put me second.

“So there's positives in it, for sure. And I think operationally, the team did a really great job today. It's the best qualifying process operationally that we've done, I think."

Expanding on that theme he added: “Operationally, I think the guys in the garage always do an amazing job. But I just think how calm the people the guys were, the head engineers were on the pit wall.

“The timing was spot-on, when they got us into the pit lane, the gaps they were giving us, staying out of the traffic management, not getting penalties for traffic here, the turnarounds were just spot-on, really good.”

In Austria the team has its first major update in many weeks in the form of a completely new floor. Hamilton is convinced that it’s an improvement.

“The guys, they've definitely been able to extract more from the floor this weekend. It was a really small step. First there's degradation in floors, so a new floor is always a little bit better.

“And then on top of that, the step of improvement and performance. And so I'm really thankful to the team back at the factory, for the work that put in to bring it.”

Hamilton insisted that there was no disappointment in just missing out on an even better grid position,

“No, I mean, jeez, I've been in this business for such a long time. You win some, you lose some.

“I'm grateful that we're on the second row at least. And usually our race is better, our car is better in the race generally, than it is usually in qualifying. So we've improved in qualifying this weekend. Let's hope that we can carry that over into the race.”

Hamilton says he can see the team improving, but he knows it’s a not a fast process.

“Bit by bit,” he said. “It's definitely slow to change. We are making progress, but there are lots of things that need to continue to improve for us to be able to do what we do, like this weekend consistently, weekend in, weekend out. But we're working on it.

“I hope we can take this performance through to Silverstone and be in the mix of the fight. That would be freaking awesome! I think, for me, I'm continuing to keep my head down, continuing to work away. The fact is, every time I go to the track, it's a new characteristic of the car at that track.

“When I started on Friday, I'm like, ‘Shoot, this is so different to what I raced here with last year.’

“You'd be just so surprised at the different way you have to set things, and the different way you have to turn the car through corner, but I think I've got on top of it to the best of my ability. Ultimately, the last lap wasn't good enough. But I keep working on it.”