Race: Rosberg Wins Austrian GP

Nico Rosberg claimed the first F1 victory in Austria in more than a decade as he held off team-mate Lewis Hamilton to win on Sunday afternoon.

Williams took the fight to Mercedes in Sunday’s 71-lap Austrian GP, a race that was initially led by Felipe Massa.

The pole-sitter made a flying start to lead ahead of Rosberg and Hamilton, who jumped from ninth to fourth on the first lap alone, even overtaking Fernando Alonso through Turn 8.

The first round of pits stops saw a change in the order as Rosberg seized the advantage ahead of Bottas and Hamilton, while Massa was the big loser, dropping from first to fourth.

The second round of pit stops had Hamilton come in first, a lap ahead of Rosberg and two before Bottas. That allowed Hamilton to leapfrog Bottas but not Rosberg. And when Massa pitted it was a Mercedes 1-2 followed by a Williams 3-4.

Managing the gap to his team-mate, Rosberg crossed the line 1.9s ahead of Hamilton to take his third win of this season, extending his lead in the Drivers’ Championship to 29 points over the British racer.

Bottas joined the Mercedes duo on the podium while Massa was fourth ahead of his former Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso.

Sergio Perez, who ran a long first stint, pulled off a late pass on Kevin Magnussen to take sixth place, while Nico Hulkenberg’s ninth place meant yet another double points finish for Force India.

Daniel Ricciardo was eighth with Kimi Raikkonen completing the top ten.

Ricciardo had the better day out of the two Red Bull racers as Sebastian Vettel’s challenge ended on lap two when he “lost drive” and was forced to pull over on the side of the track. The reset worked and he was back up and running but down in 22nd place.

His race went from bad to worse when an attempted pass on Esteban Gutierrez – who had earlier been penalised when Sauber released without his rear right properly attached – resulted in a broken front wing for Vettel.

The reigning World Champion’s afternoon came to an end on lap 36 when he was told “box, box, we are retiring the car.”

He was the second retirement of the day after Daniil Kvyat’s race ended 10 laps earlier when he went off at Turn 5 with “no brakes.” Left with a shredded rear right tyre and most likely suspension damage, he parked his car. Jean-Eric Vergne joined his team-mate when he pitted on lap 61 having also lost his brakes.

Result
01 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:27.54.976
02 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +1.9
03 Valtteri Bottas Williams +8.1
04 Felipe Massa Williams +17.2
05 Fernando Alonso Ferrari +18.3
06 Sergio Perez Force India +28.2
07 Kevin Magnussen McLaren +31.5
08 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull +42.9
09 Nico Hulkenberg Force India +43.5
10 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari +47.1
11 Jenson Button McLaren +50.2
12 Pastor Maldonado Lotus +1 lap
13 Adrian Sutil Sauber +1 lap
14 Romain Grosjean Lotus +1 lap
15 Jules Bianchi Marussia +2 laps
16 Kamui Kobayashi Caterham +2 laps
17 Max Chilton Marussia +2 laps
18 Marcus Ericsson Caterham +2 laps
19 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber +2 laps
Did Not Finish
Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso
Sebastian Vettel Red Bull
Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso