Bottas on pole, Vettel 2nd, Hamilton will start 8th after penalty
Hamilton refuses to shake Vettel's hand when asked by interviewer
Five-place grid penalty for Hamilton after gearbox change
Raikkonen 3rd, Ricciardo 4th, Verstappen spins off on flying lap
Image source, AFPPlenty of people, however, do not feel the punishment fits the crime after Sebastian Vettel got off with a slapped wrist...
John: Sure two wrongs don't make a right but how can what Vettel did in the last race, endangering lives, not warrant a greater penalty than changing a gearbox. Vettel should at least be relegated to a pit lane start!
With Lewis Hamilton's gearbox change coming so soon after his coming together with Sebastian Vettel there's been speculation on social media that the two are connected.
They are not, Mercedes have confirmed.
Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer in Austria
Alonso back to Spec Two engine after Honda discovered problem with his MGU-H. No penalties.
Final practice gets under way at 10:00 BST and you can listen to audio commentary online.
It's cloudy above Spielberg but chances of rain are low, although they increase for qualifying...
Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer in Austria
Given he can start no better than sixth on the grid, assuming no-one ahead of him gets a penalty, it’s a good job Lewis Hamilton looked so quick on Friday. Fastest in both practice sessions on headline lap times, and quickest by a mile on race-simulation runs, too, when the margin over anyone else was well over half a second on average, with Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas and the two Ferrari drivers all closely matched.
The picture was skewed by the fact Bottas was running with a floor damaged in a high-speed spin in Turn Six, and Sebastian Vettel did his first run on super-softs rather than the usual ultra-softs. But the off-set between tyres seems to be unusually small, almost non-existent. For Ferrari, the picture was a little concerning.
Sebastian Vettel admitted pole would be “difficult” because the Mercedes “looked very quick no matter when they went out”. Hamilton’s gearbox problem makes Ferrari’s world quite a lot sunnier, but that does not lessen the impression that Mercedes have eased out their gap on pure performance over Ferrari since Monaco.
Sammy: The only reason that Mercedes would change out a gearbox before the mandatory 6 races would be if they saw something in the data that indicated the gearbox would not be able to complete this weekend without failing.No conspiracy and yes they know the rules. Just bad luck but not unusual when the engineering tolerances in F1 machinery are so tight.
Sebastian Vettel certainly didn't appear to win many fans for his part in the Azberbaijan Grand Prix clash with Lewis Hamilton, in a vote we ran yesterday 80% of people felt he should have been disqualified.
This young lad still has his back, though. Either that or he just couldn't get the word 'Raikkonen' to fit on the back of his head...
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Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer in Austria
In hindsight, perhaps the clues were there all along.
On track, Lewis Hamilton was on fire on Friday, but off it he has seemed a little flat since arriving at the Red Bull Ring. Now there is a pretty good idea of why. It could have been the fact that he did not agree with Sebastian Vettel not being disqualified after their incident in Baku. It might have been that the loose head restraint he suffered cost him a win and meant Vettel actually extended his points lead. But just as likely it was his knowledge that he was to get a five-place grid penalty for an unauthorised change of gearbox.
The media did not know. But Mercedes did - they told the FIA on Tuesday. The rest of us only found out on Friday evening. That fourth title just got that little bit harder for Hamilton.
Image source, getFollowing the well-documented kerfuffle with Sebastian Vettel at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton underlined his intent to put that behind him by going fastest in practice for the Austrian Grand Prix on Friday.
But, as the sun was setting over the Austrian Alps, confirmation came that Hamilton has been hit with a five-play grid penalty for an unscheduled gearbox change.
When it rains, it pours...
Image source, Rex FeaturesHeard of Lemony Snicket? It's the fantastically odd pen name for American Daniel Handler, author of A Series of Unfortunate Events.
For anyone still none the wiser they are a collection of hugely popular children's books, made into a film starring Jim Carrey a few years ago.
It is also a title would also be a pretty apt way of describing a forgettable couple of weeks for Lewis Hamilton...