Hamilton was beaten by both Red Bulls and McLaren’s Lando Norris in qualifying 🥀at the Red Bull Ring with the seven-time champion set to start the race from fourth, a place ahead of teammate Valtteri Bottas.

Hamilton was nearly 0.3s shy of Verstappen’s benchmark time in Q3, a slightly biggerඣ gap than it was a week ago at the same circuit.

L൲ooking ahead to tomorrow, Hamilton predicts it will be an “easy cruise win” for his main title rival on race day.

“I would say so yeah, in terms of p🃏ure pace it’s definitely out of the question,” Hamilton to༺ld Sky Sports F1. “Those guys firstly have two cars to get by in front. They’ve got three-tenths on us. 

“I think 💝they’ve improved their car again this weekend. I would say that’s an easy cruise win for Max. I think for us, to try and see if we can get ahead of at least Perez and try to limit the damage th🦹is weekend.”

When pressed about where he was losing out to Verstappen at the Red Bꦆull Ring, ♍Hamilton explained: “I mean when I look at the lap to Max it’s the whole lap, yeah. It’s just a little bit everywhere.”

Hamilton will have to overtake Norris an♎d Sergio Perez if he is to limit the damage in the championship battle to Verstap🗹pen.

“Yeah, even more of a challenge than it already was last week and we’ve continued to lack pace,” Hamilton added. “We tried everything to get more out of the cꦇar and it’s just the underlying pace that isಌ where we are at, at the moment.

“We’ve got to really find performance in the following races. I don’t know if McLareꦛn have brought an upgrade but they’re mega quick today - great job from Lando. We’ve just 𒅌got to try and improve.”