Lewis Hamilton given £86 FINE for speeding in pit lane as Max Verstappen sets best practice time

Lewis Hamilton was handed a €100 (£86) speeding ticket in the sole practice session for the Austrian Grand Prix.

The seven-time world champion was travelling just 0.12mph over the pit-lane limit of 50mph when the FIA radar clocked him. He finished fourth quickest.

World champion Max Verstappen predictably led the way, threading his car around his Red Bull team’s eponymous home track, 0.241sec ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz with the other red car, of Charles Leclerc, third best.

Qualifying is due to take place at 4pm BST on Friday afternoon, and Verstappen looks impregnable having set his quickest time on medium tyres.

With Saturday given over to the sprint race, the grid from qualifying will be held over for Sunday’s grand prix in the verdant Styrian mountains.

He set the fourth-best time in practice for the Austrian GP and Mercedes will pay the fine

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were also fined for the same offence

Hamilton had been top of the timing charts for much of the afternoon but the Mercedes man ended up half a second back.

His team-mate, George Russell, was only ninth quickest, a further 0.5 in arrears on the calendar’s shortest track. But at least he fared better than the third Englishman on the grid, Lando Norris of McLaren, who finished last, having completed just 20 laps compared to Verstappen’s 30.

Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll was fined €200 (£172) for speeding in the pit lane while team-mate Fernando Alonso was given a €100 (£86) penalty for the same offence.

The good news for all the multi-millionaire speed merchants is that the sanctions are applied to their teams.