Lewis Hamilton is hoping to be "surprised" on race day as he feels Mercedes lack the "raw pace" to challenge Max Verstappen in Styria.

The seven-time world champion finished third in qualifying at the Red Bull Ring but will start second due to teammate Valtteri Bottas' three-place grid penalty for his spin in the pit-lane during Practice 2.

In Q3, Hamilton was the only driver to go for three runs, with the short lap times around the Spielberg track making that possible.

But ultimately nothing would be enough to challenge the might of Verstappen.

“It was a difficult session for me,” the Mercedes driver said via Formula1.com. “Generally I’ve had a really good weekend so far, of course not as quick as Max but I did a lot of work before the event and the car was feeling great all day yesterday.

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"We’ve just been chipping away at it – each change is just trying to eke out like 10 milliseconds or something. Then I got into qualifying and the car just didn’t feel as great as it did in P3 – I don’t fully understand it.

“I didn’t have expectations [going into qualifying], I wanted to have a good session and deliver a good lap. In FP3, I did a lap and I was like ‘that’s the one I need in Q3’ and I got nowhere near it," he amusedly admitted.

"But nonetheless we're still on the front row after the penalty so we're going to race tomorrow for a fight."

Looking ahead, while Hamilton vows to never give up, he does think matching Verstappen is easier said than done.

"I will be giving it everything, obviously, but I am just talking about pure pace," he said post-session.

"They generally have a quarter of a second on us all weekend. We've managed to eke closer in qualifying, but in race trim yesterday they were a quarter of a second ahead of us most of the time.

"They've been so fast this weekend, I don't think we have the raw pace to overtake them, that's for sure. We might just be able to keep up, it'll be interesting to see whether or not we can manage it.

"Maybe tomorrow, we'll be surprised. Maybe it rains, who knows?"