Nico Rosberg won Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix to narrow the gap between himself and Lewis Hamilton at the top of the Formula One world championship to 10 points.
It was Rosberg’s third victory of the season, following wins in Spain and Monaco, and was a repeat of his triumph at the Red Bull Ring last year.
Hamilton finished a damage-limiting second but despite pinching pole on Saturday, he has looked the second best Mercedes driver for most of the weekend. After another week in which the sport has taken a lot of criticism, the result at least spices things up for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in a fortnight.
Rosberg jumped Hamilton on the inside going into turn one and thoroughly deserved his 11th win in Formula One. Before both drivers came in for their solitary pit stop there was a five-lap period when Rosberg increased his lead from two seconds to four. Hamilton managed to reduce his disadvantage to 2.2 seconds but then, when the drivers pitted, Rosberg emerged the stronger once again.
Rosberg’s stop was marginally the quicker (2.7 against 3.1) and the German built up his lead over the subsequent laps, including a fastest lap. When Hamilton then incurred a five-second penalty for crossing the white line at the pit exit, Rosberg in effect doubled his lead, from about five seconds to 10.
“Yes, yes, come on guys,” he shouted in ecstasy after crossing the winning line 3.8 seconds ahead of his great rival. He added: “It’s an awesome feeling to win again here. The start made the race. I took the lead and then managed to defend through the next few corners. I was very happy with the car and it worked out perfectly for me.”
Hamilton said: “Nico did a fantastic job. He was quicker during the race.”
Felipe Massa (Williams) and Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) were next, followed by Valtteri Bottas (Williams) and Nico Hülkenberg (Force India).
The race got off to a dramatic start when there was a heavy collision between Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen, two men who are usually extremely adept at keeping out of trouble. Raikkonen lost his rear end and Alonso, with nowhere to go, clattered into the back of him, putting both out of the race. They were also lucky to escape injury.
It was an even more wretched weekend than usual for McLaren, with both their cars out of the race before lap nine. Jenson Button was told to retire and said: “The team said I had to do some switch changes on the car. I tried but it made no difference. I don’t think there’s anything broken. I don’t know what the problem is.”
McLaren said: “A brief and very disappointing Austrian GP for the team. Time to get our heads down for testing and Silverstone.”
But to add to their long list of troubles this season the damage to Alonso’s car – which had the upgrades ahead of Button’s for the race – is likely to compromise the final in-season testing session next week.
(Guardian service)
