Wolff accuses Verstappen of 'revenge foul' in Sprint Shootout

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says Max Verstappen purposefully ruined Lewis Hamilton's flyer in Saturday's Sprint qualifying in Austria in retaliation for the Briton inadvertently blocking the Red Bull charger earlier in the session.

Verstappen barreled down on Hamilton as the pair entered the final corner at the Red Bull Ring but was forced to brake hard to deal with the Mercedes' presence.

The championship leader then returned the favour a little further up the road when he lifted on the exit of Turn 1, ruining Hamilton's lap which cost the Mercedes driver time in the short SQ1 segment and ultimately deprived him of a second flyer.

"He blocked me into the last corner, so I had to brake more and I lost like three tenths," commented Verstappen.

"So that wasn't ideal [and] I think not correct. But there was still a few seconds on the clock [and] I wasn't sure that laptime was going to be safe, so I wanted to continue. But, yeah, ran out of time, space, with the two cars like that. Which was a bit of a shame."

Read also: Hamilton 'paid the price for playing it safe' in sprint

Wolff said Mercedes took responsibility for poorly timing its driver's run and placing him on Verstappen's trajectory.

But the Austrian insisted that Verstappen's move was a clear "revenge foul" on the part of the Red Bull driver.

"The mistake happened on our side," Wolff explained. "The communication between us and Lewis didn't give him the right information to get out of Max's way.

"No one wants to be in anybody's way because if you impede, you get penalised.

"On the other side, Turn 1 was a revenge foul, it was just to make sure his lap was ruined. So one was not intentional, the other was intentional."

Wolff didn't believe the incident was worth reporting to the stewards, but he did suggest that it would likely be addressed at next week's drivers' briefing at Silverstone.

"But who cares? We looked at it but it doesn't change our race, but they will talk about it in the drivers' briefing next week," he said.

Both Hamilton and teammate George Russell started their Sprint race among the lower tier of the field, but only the latter managed to salvage a point, with Hamilton concluding the afternoon's mad dash P10.

The seven-time F1 world champion will launch his Austrian Grand Prix from fifth on the grid while Russell, who failed to make the top-ten for the third consecutive race, will line up in P11.

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