(Reuters) – Seven-time Mercedes world champion Lewis Hamilton said on Saturday he was shocked to hear fans cheering when he crashed his car badly during qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix.
The 37-year-old Briton qualified 10th on Friday for Saturday’s sprint race.
He started ninth and finished eighth in a 23-lap race won by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, to the delight of the Dutch driver’s orange army of fans in the team’s home race.
Verstappen received boos and cheers at Silverstone, Hamilton’s home race, last weekend.
The championship leader for Red Bull was booed as he qualified on the front row and cheered as he slowed down in the race, with a puncture and damage to the car knocking him from first to seventh.
“I was dealing with a lot of stuff on the crash, but hearing it later, you know… I don’t agree with that, no matter what,” Hamilton said, of the cheers when he hit the tire barrier at high speed.
“Could a pilot have gone to the hospital and are you going to applaud that?”
“It’s amazing that these people do this, knowing how dangerous our sport is. I’m grateful that I didn’t go to the hospital and I wasn’t seriously injured,” added the sport’s most successful driver.
“You should never celebrate someone’s fall or someone’s injury.”
“It shouldn’t have happened at Silverstone, although it wasn’t a crash, and it shouldn’t have happened here.”
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