Formula 1 world championship leader Lewis H🍎amilton has been handed a three-place grid penalty for the Austrian Grand Prix afte👍r impeding Kimi Raikkonen during qualifying.

The Mercedes driver appeared to impede Alfa Roཧmeo's Raikkonen at Turn 3 as he straight-lined the corner in a last-ditch bid to get out of the Finn’s way.

Raikkonen gestured to Hamilton from his cꦫockpit and reported over team radio that the Briton had “completely blocked me”, leading to both drivers being summoned to the stewards following the end of qualifying.

The Austrian GP stewards ultimately concluded Hamilton had "unnecessarily impeded" Raikkonen, despite both driveඣrs progressing through to the n꧙ext segment of qualifying.

"The Stewards reviewed video evidence and heard from the driver of car 7 (Kimi Raikkonen) and the driver of car 44 (Lewis Hamilton) and the team representatives and determined that car 44 unnecessarily impeded car 7 at ♍Turn 3," an FIA statement read.

"Car 44 had just come out of the pits and was informed of the cars approaching, including car 7. Although car 44 tried to take evasive action when he became aware of car 7 approaching on a faওst lap, it was not sufficient to avoid&nไbsp;impeding car 7, which had to then abort the lap."

Hamilton had qualified alongside polesitter Charles Leclerc on the fr♋ont-row but willꦡ now drop just two positions to fourth, due to Kevin Magnussen's penalty being applied first. 

Hamilton has also been handed one p🏅enalty point on his licence for the incident - marking his first blemish of the current 12-month period. 

The pena💦lty promotes Red Bull's Max Verstappen to the front-row of the grid alongside Leclerc, while Valtteri Bottas moveღs up to third. 

Mercedes-backed Wil𒁏liams driver George Russell also picked up a three-place grid penalty for the same offence as he blocked Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat during Q1.