SPIELBERG, AUSTRIA – Nico Rosberg has won the Austrian Grand Prix after fending off teammate Lewis Hamilton in the final stages of the race to claim his third victory of the season.
The German driver started third on the grid, and was forced to fight with the Williams duo of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas after they had locked out the front row on Saturday. Ultimately, they could not prevent the Mercedes cars from getting past, and eventually had to settle for third and fourth place come the checkered flag.
The result does mark Bottas’ first ever podium finish in Formula 1, as well as the team’s best result of the season. However, it was Rosberg who left the Red Bull Ring with the biggest smile after fighting off his teammate and extending his lead in the drivers’ championship to 29 points.
Off the line, Massa made a good start to hold on to his lead, but teammate Valtteri Bottas became bogged down and was overtaken by Rosberg into turn one. The Finn soon made up for it by re-passing the Mercedes driver, only to soon have two Silver Arrows in his mirrors after Lewis Hamilton surged from ninth on the grid up to fourth by the end of the first lap.
Sebastian Vettel’s disastrous weekend got even worse on the second lap when his Red Bull car lost drive. His race appeared to be over, only for the RB10 to burst back into life one minute later. Although he was a lap down on the rest of the field and stone dead last, he was still running, and was given the call from his engineer to simply “go racing”. However, his race eventually came to an end on lap 37 when Red Bull decided to retire the car.
At the front, Massa and Bottas continued to forge ahead and keep the chasing Mercedes cars at bay. The Brazilian driver was told to keep looking after his tires, but seemed to be keeping a cool head in the lead. After a poor start, Daniil Kvyat began to fight back by overtaking Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo around the outside of turn five with a very impressive move, but Toro Rosso threw it away by unsafely releasing its Russian driver.
Rosberg was the first of the front-runners to pit, coming in on lap eleven, with Hamilton following suit two laps later. The Briton was unable to get the jump on his teammate, but both managed to pass Massa when he came in. The Brazilian driver emerged from the pit lane behind Rosberg and ahead of Hamilton, only for the latter to pass him a few corners later. Bottas was unable to keep Williams in the lead, coming out behind Rosberg after stopping, but by staying ahead of Hamilton he kept the team’s hopes of a race win alive in third place.
The race lead went to Force India’s Sergio Perez, who had started on the prime tire. Just as he did in Canada, he bunched the chasing cars together, and was doing a good job to stay ahead in his bid to make up for his retirement in Montreal.
However, his tires soon began to give way, allowing Rosberg and Bottas both to make it past and into the top two positions. Hamilton followed suit on the next lap, with Massa eventually gaining the place when Force India pitted their Mexican driver, dropping him down to eighth place.
Now leading, Rosberg was lucky not to lose a place to Bottas just a few laps later after running wide at turn one. The Finn closed up on the back of the championship leader, and refused to relent despite the other Mercedes being on his tail. Rosberg regained his composure, and continued to lead as the race passed half distance.
As the team looked to secure another one-two finish, Rosberg and Hamilton were both given the call to push on the final few laps of their stint before pitting for a second time. The status quo remained at Mercedes after the stops, with attention turning to Williams and Bottas at the front. When the Finn did pit, the combination slow stop and a fastest lap from Hamilton meant that he lost a position to the British driver.
Rosberg was soon informed that he was racing Hamilton until the end of the race, with just 1.5 seconds separating the pair after they had passed Bottas. Fernando Alonso enjoyed his first few laps in the lead of a race in 2014 as he went longer on his second stint before pitting with 23 laps to go, handing the lead to the Mercedes duo.
The two Silver Arrows began to fight it out at the front, trading quicker lap times and keeping the gap steady. Further back, Massa found himself trailing Perez once again, and – following their altercation in Canada – stayed behind the Force India and waited until the Mexican made his final pit stop. Perez came back out in eighth place on a set of super-soft tires ahead of teammate Nico Hulkenberg.
As the laps whittled down, Hamilton asked his team for updates on where he could be quicker. Despite matching Rosberg, he simply could not find a way past. The German driver crossed the line to claim his third win of the season, and, perhaps more importantly, increase his championship lead over Hamilton to 29 points.
Despite not converting its front row lock-out into a race win, Williams was left happy as Valtteri Bottas secured his first ever podium finish in Formula 1 and the team’s best result of the season.
Alonso began to catch Massa in the final few laps of the races, but was unable to find a way past his former teammate and had to settle for fifth place come the checkered flag. Perez managed to fight back from his grid penalty to finish sixth ahead of Kevin Magnussen and teammate Nico Hulkenberg. Daniel Ricciardo came home in ninth for Red Bull, and the final point was claimed by Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen.
After a difficult qualifying session on Saturday, Mercedes will be delighted to have claimed its sixth one-two finish in eight races. However, after losing yet more ground to Rosberg in the drivers’ championship, Hamilton will know that only a win will do at his home race, the British Grand Prix, in two weeks’ time.
