Hamilton: A driver could've been in hospital and you cheer that?

The 37-year-old Briton qualified 10th on Friday for the Saturday 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 at the team's home race who, collectively, turned the Spielberg hills dusty orange for most of the sessions, ramping up the smoke flares during the Sprint Race.

A week earlier, Verstappen had been on the receiving end of boos and the wrong sort of cheers at the British Grand Prix, Hamilton's home race.

Red Bull's reigning world champion and 2022 F1 championship leader was booed when he qualified on the front row and jeered at when he slowed in the race at Silverstone, a puncture and car damage dropping him from first to seventh to the delight of the home crowd.

Recalling his Friday accident at Red Bull Ring, Hamilton told reporters: "I was going through a bunch of stuff in the crash, but to hear it afterwards you know...I don't agree with any of that, no matter what.

"A driver could have been in hospital, and you are going to cheer that?" said Hamilton of the cheers after he hit the tyre barrier at speed.

"It's just mind-blowing that people would do that, knowing how dangerous our sport is. I'm grateful that I wasn't in hospital and I wasn't heavily injured.

"You should never cheer someone's downfall or someone's injury. It shouldn't have happened at Silverstone, even though it wasn't a crash, and it shouldn't have happened here," insisted the sport's most successful driver.

Verstappen said after the sprint that it had been great to see all the fans: "You know there is a lot of orange around here, and you could hear them cheering. So that was very nice, for sure."

Hamilton will start the 2022 Austrian Grand Prix, a race he has won only once, from eighth on the grid with Verstappen on pole.