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Nico Rosberg wins F1’s Austrian GP to extend lead over Lewis Hamilton Nico Rosberg wins F1’s Austrian GP to extend lead over Lewis Hamilton
(about 4 hours later)
Nico Rosberg won his third race of the season to extend his lead over Lewis Hamilton to 29 points in Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix. At least the two drivers embraced at the end of the race. Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, second and first in the Austrian Grand Prix, and their engineers have been warned against hiding information from each other as the battle for the Formula One world championship reaches a new level of intensity.
It was another one-two for Mercedes but Hamilton was once again left to regret his mistakes in qualifying on Saturday, when pole poison was there for the taking. With the season approaching the halfway stage matters are looking very serious for the British driver. Hamilton will now be looking forward to the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in two weeks’ time more urgently than ever. The Mercedes motorsport chief, Toto Wolff, speaking after the German driver extended his lead in the championship to 29 points, said: “We must not lose transparency. Yesterday we had a bit of a moment after P3 when we weren’t in good shape. And the atmosphere wasn’t like in the races before.
It was a great result for the Williams pair of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa, who finally converted their pace into meaningful points – they finished third and fourth, and they were followed by Fernando Alonso and Sergio Pérez. “We see that it’s getting very competitive. Transparency is suffering a little bit. And we need to make sure this is not detrimental to the team.”
It was the first podium position of his career for Bottas and he was arguably the outstanding driver of the day. Drivers and their respective teams are instructed to share all data for the benefit of Mercedes overall.
Hamilton made a sensational start, bursting between the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen and the Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat and then sweeping past Kevin Magnussen and Daniel Ricciardo. Then he went past Alonso, so in just over a lap he had gone from ninth to fourth. Wolff added: “We can only learn if we have an open and transparent way of working with each other. We don’t want to see any sandbagging. We don’t want to see any aborted laps.
But predictions that the Williams pair would soon roll over proved unfounded as Massa and Bottas proved both fast and durable. Bottas, who started second, was overtaken by Rosberg at the start but regained his position a few laps later. “The drivers’ main agenda is about winning the drivers’ championship. Our main agenda is about winning the constructors’ championship. Maybe first we need to win the constructors and then we can unleash them.”
But the poor fortune that has dogged Hamilton this season struck again when the two Mercedes drivers pitted. Rosberg’s stop took 2.6sec, but Hamilton’s was 3.5sec. Wolff’s stern words are a clear indication that Mercedes are fully stretched keeping a lid on the fierce competition for this year’s title.
Bottas, though, made one of the fastest stops ever, in just 2.1sec, to retain his competitive drive. But Williams may regret not pitting earlier. Hamilton made a sensational start to Sunday’s race when he surged from ninth to fourth in the opening lap. But his cruel fortune continued when his two pit stops took a total of 1.9 seconds longer than Rosberg’s – and that was Rosberg’s winning margin at the end of the race.
Sebastian Vettel, who had had trouble early on, was told during the 34th lap to pit and retire his car. And with Daniel Ricciardo finishing eighth it was not a great performance by Red Bull in their home race. But Wolff added: “Lewis lost the race in qualifying yesterday. He recovered tremendously with a great start and a great first lap. In all our calculations his best possible result was a second and he achieved that.
But it was an even worse day for McLaren. Kevin Magnussen was seventh and Jenson Button 11th and that means their team has slipped to sixth place in the championship, behind Williams and Force India. “Our pit stops generally were not at the level we want them to be. In Lewis’s favour we pitted him early. We pitted him before Nico, which is against what we normally do. Nico this afternoon was the faster guy. Why was he the faster guy? He was starting in P3 and not in P9.
“Lewis’s result today was compromised by what happened yesterday. Your brakes and your tyres will suffer more than the guy in the lead.”
Rosberg, who started behind the Williams pair of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas, recorded his third win of the season, and is now more than the 25 points earned for a race victory ahead of Hamilton.
But on Sunday night the British driver received a rallying call from Mercedes’ nonexecutive chairman, Niki Lauda, who evoked memories of his own days of glory by getting behind the wheel once again at the picturesque Red Bull Ring.
Lauda said: “Lewis will fight back I have no worries about that at all. We are going to Silverstone and Lewis is Lewis. He has his home race and fans and he needs to make up ground to Nico, so I am sure he will be at his highest level. His Montreal race was a disaster but he will keep on fighting, don’t worry.”
Rosberg may have won on Sunday but the drive of the day arguably came from Bottas as Williams finally converted their obvious pace into vital points. Bottas was third, his first podium finish, and Massa fourth.
Sergio Pérez also put together an impressive drive for Force India to finish in sixth. That means that McLaren have slipped back to sixth place in the constructors’ championship, behind both Force India and Williams. McLaren will take some consolation from the fact that they were experimenting with a substantial new package of upgrades on Sunday.
In their “home” race Red Bull also had an anticlimactic time. Sebastian Vettel retired halfway through and Daniel Ricciardo, winner of the Canadian Grand Prix earlier this month, managed only eighth.
Afterwards an angry team principal, Christian Horner, sounded as if he was ready to ditch his engine supplier, Renault. He said: “It’s frustrating. We’ve had a lot of success with Renault, we’ve won all the races and championships with Renault, but the situation just isn’t improving at the moment. Reliability is unacceptable, performance is unacceptable, and there needs to be change.
“It can’t continue like this. It’s not good for Renault and it’s not good for Red Bull. These kind of issues can’t and shouldn’t happen. Something needs to happen. Whatever is being done there at the moment isn’t working. It’s not our business, it’s not our responsibility. We’re the end user and it’s frustrating that the product isn’t where it needs to be.”
Horner did not discount Red Bull making their own engine. “It’s unlikely, but we want to be competitive, we want to run at the front. We need to make a step.”