The seven-time world champion qualified third for Sunday’s race but will join his title rival and polesitter Max Vers𝄹tappen on the front row after his Mercedes t🍌eammate Valtteri Bottas’ three-place grid penalty is applied.

Hamilton, who ended up missing out on pole by 0.226s, was seen overtaking a number of his rivals in the last sect꧙or at Spielberg just before he started his f𒐪inal push lap in Q3.

Having failed to improve on his last run, which included a wide moment at the final sequence of co꧅rners, Hamilton admitted hi𒁃s queue-jumping tactic was “definitely” a mistake “in hindsight”.

“I knew that everyone was going so slow and I was worried [about] not having the t꧋yres up to temperature but I went on all the dirty lines so I was just picking up all the dirt on the tyres,” Hamilton said.

"And then a poor exit ouไt of the last corner, so 🧸already by Turn 1 I was a tenth down then already by Turn 3 I was two-tenths down.

“No hope🍸 in that respect and then naturally tried to overdrive to gather that time lost back but it didn’t work.”

Hamilton explained his and Mercedes’ decision to carry out an unu🐭sual Q3 strategy that saw him complete three flying lap attempts on the soft tyre instead of the typical two runs.

“I was told that I had three tyres and I could use them all so I🍨 was like yeah, I’ll throw everything at it, give it three shots in the hope to close the two-tenths⛄ to Max,” he said.

“But as I said, th✃e last one was not great when there’s all these people out there and you’re not able to get the temperature into the tyres. But we did everything we coul🏅d.”