Lewis will be first domino to fall

LEWIS HAMILTON showed why he is the key to this summer’s driver market with a dominant display in Austria yesterday.

Britain’s four-time world champion made the most of his upgraded Mercedes to set the pace at the Red Bull Ring, with his team-mate Valtteri Bottas second to him in both sessions.

Hamilton looks well placed to put his foot down in the fight with Ferrari rival Sebastian Vettel.

And that form is why Mercedes are desperate to keep Hamilton when his deal expires at the end of the season. And with Daniel Ricciardo’s future at Red Bull yet to be sorted and Kimi Raikkonen tipped to leave Ferrari, nothing is certain until Hamilton signs.

“All of these things are interlinked in some way,” said Red Bull team principal Christian Horner. “The whole driver market is waiting for Hamilton to kick that off.”

The Briton kicked things off in style yesterday but did admitted his radicallyreworked machine still needed fine-tuning ahead of today’s qualifying.

“The car felt immediately better coming out of the garage,” he said. “It got a little worse in the afternoon and we’ll try to figure out why. But the car does feel good overall, so I’m sure we can rectify it.”

Vettel, who sits 14 points behind Hamilton in the race for the drivers’ title, was happy enough with the pace of his Ferrari after trailing Hamilton by just over twotenths of a second. The German is less impressed with the addition of a third overtaking zone in Austria, where drivers can operate their drag reduction system to make passing easier.

“I don’t know if it is a solution,” said Vettel, who is looking to bounce back after finishing fifth last time out.

“There are a lot of people that maybe like the idea of Mario Kart – including myself, I played it when I was young. But it shouldn’t get artificial.

“Maybe it helps with overtaking, but if you end up driving past another car it isn’t very exciting either.”