Rosberg holds off Hamilton but could Williams have won in Austria?

Nico Rosberg took his third victory of the year, heading a Mercedes 1-2 for the sixth time this season. This means he now heads the championship by 29 points, that’s over a race wins worth of points if you don’t count the final race double point gimmick but which could prove crucial.

It was all excitement at the start, for the first time this season there wasn’t a Mercedes in sight on the front row of the grid. The Williams cars, with Felipe Massa taking pole position ahead of Valtteri Bottas locked out the front row with their beautiful Martini Colours.

Hamilton looked the man for pole position, consistently quick throughout practice and the first two quali sessions, but whether it was pressure or just a simple mistake he blew it. His first lap time was deleted for exceeding track limits while his second run came to an end when he locked the rear into turn five and spun. Rosberg wasn’t far behind him, the yellow flags came out for the #44 Mercedes so Nico’s lap was compromised leaving him third and Hamilton a lowly ninth.

By then Bottas hadn’t improved on his provisional pole lap, leaving Felipe Massa to take the top spot with a fine lap, but one where it was evident he could have gone quicker still. The Williams cars were very effective around the Red Bull Ring, it’s full of long straights with little in the way of meaningful corners which suits them fine just like Canada did.

Massa got a great start and took an easy lead. It was a bit more difficult for Bottas as Rosberg leapt ahead, but after turn one Bottas got a great exit and swept around the Mercedes to be second. Behind Hamilton launched brilliantly between Daniil Kvyat and Kevin Magnussen. Canada winner Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull started fifth but got hung out wide in turn one to lose a lot of places, Hamilton was up to fifth. Behind Alonso, he made a great pass into turn 8 and so a Williams 1-2 headed a Mercedes 3-4 at the end of the first lap.

It looked like the Mercedes cars were ready to pounce immediately, with Lewis looking particularly fast today. But it just didn’t happen for the first stint. Williams were too fast down the straights for the Mercedes to attack, so mostly covered by around two seconds, they all circulated for the opening short stint on their super-soft tyres.

It was immediately obvious they were graining quite badly, but still it wasn’t until lap 11 that Rosberg dived into the pit lane for his first stop. If Williams truly believed they had an opportunity for the win I think they would have pitted Massa or Bottas next time around to try and maintain position but they didn’t.

It was two laps later before it was Hamilton who pitted, suffering a pit stop nine tenths of a second longer than his team mate. Massa came in next time round, losing out to Rosberg, but exiting ahead of Hamilton who simply dived down the inside of the Williams into turn two. Bottas looked like he might have been able to go quicker than his team mate and had a great in-lap coming out between the two Mercedes after a superb 2.1 second pit stop by the Williams crew. Massa’s stop had been over a second slower which lost him a podium opportunity.

So the four of them ran Rosberg, Bottas, Hamilton, Massa behind the long first stinting Sergio Perez in the Force India. He didn’t appear to be holding them up too much either as he made his tyres last until lap 30, Rosberg and Bottas only getting ahead a few laps earlier, with Hamilton not long after.

Massa didn’t have to make the pass before Perez pitted, probably much to his relief after the controversial last lap clash in Canada which had resulted in Perez collecting a five place grid penalty which meant he started only 16^th, so to lead the race was quite impressive.

Once Perez was out the way, the expected Mercedes pace wasn’t unleashed. Rosberg couldn’t get away from Bottas. In fact he ran wide and struggled to get his pace back for a few laps, Bottas even had a vague attempt to pass but wasn’t quite close enough and he also had to be mindful of the fact that Hamilton was extremely close behind too and wanting to attack his team mate. Mercedes were suffering similar cooling issues as in Canada and were not able to attack as much as they would have liked, something that again held both drivers back, this time the situation didn't get critical though.

Lap 39 and Lewis pitted, with Rosberg following a lap later. By now Rosberg had eked out a two second lead, so Mercedes felt it safe to bring in Lewis first to enable him to jump ahead of Bottas. It worked well, although he did suffer another slow stop which meant Rosberg got away from him a bit more. Now the chase was on, he immediately set fastest lap and charged after his team mate.

This wasn’t just about a race win, this was about stopping the momentum Rosberg has been building for the past two races. He needed to charge him down. Hamilton had looked the quicker driver all weekend but he didn’t close Rosberg down as quickly as he might have done. It wasn’t until the final lap when he was within DRS range.

Then there was a moment, turn two Rosberg ran wide. If Hamilton could take the corner right he might be lined up ready to attack into the second DRS zone on the run to turn three. But as if to exemplify just how hard both were pushing, he too ran wide. It was game over. He backed off and crossed the line 1.9 seconds back.

It was a valiant charge from ninth to second, but I think it could have been the win. More significantly, it gave Rosberg a win he possibly shouldn’t have had. Hamilton was quicker, but like in Bahrain and Spain when Rosberg himself had been the quicker driver but lost out, it was his turn to demonstrate he could win like that too.

As the season develops Rosberg is becoming more and more a formidable opponent for Lewis. I think a lot of people assumed that there would be a fight for the title but that in the end Lewis’ sheer speed would tell and he’d come out on top. That might still happen but Rosberg today laid down a marker that he will not be a push over and he is just as hungry for the fight as Hamilton is.

Could Williams have won?

The Williams boys finished in third and fourth. At the second round of stops they again pitted a few laps later rather than covering the Mercedes stops or even setting the agenda themselves. After the race they acknowledged they didn’t think they could fight the Mercedes so just ran to what they thought was their optimum strategy. Given how they’re hard on their tyres and they didn’t want to waste this opportunity to get their first 2014 podium, one they should have had races ago, perhaps it was a wise choice.

Having said that Mercedes although on lap time were quicker, didn’t seem to have an answer for their straight line speed, I think if they could have tried to maintain track position they might have had a fighting chance of getting second or even the win, particularly as it seemed the Mercedes were suffering a milder form of their Canada troubles. 

As the track temperature had got hotter it became more apparent that most teams were rejecting the one stop option, something Williams wouldn’t have been able to do anyway, so there was an opportunity to perhaps get something more simply by reacting to Mercedes pit stops or just by taking the initiative. Just as Canada should have been theirs, perhaps Austria should have been the double. However, they have lost a lot of points this year, so to finally get whole heap of points that’s lifted them to fifth in the constructors maybe was the best option.

Red Bull Ring hurts Red Bull

The Red Bull Ring was a disaster for Red Bull. Poor qualifying, although Ricciardo scraped a fifth, Vettel only managed 12^th. Vettel struck reliability issues again as his car lost drive and stopped on the first lap before regaining drive. He retired at half distance when a lap down and losing his front wing after a clash with Esteban Gutierrez’s Sauber, enough was enough. Ricciardo battled on after a poor start left him 10^th at the end of the first lap. He ended up eighth after a fantastic last lap move around the outside of Nico Hulkenberg’s Force India into turn five.

Other than that it was a pretty dismal weekend for the team. Christian Horner chose this time to launch an attack on their power unit suppliers Renault. He said the situation was completely unacceptable and that changes needed to be made fast. Red Bull are committed to Renault for 2015 but after that their options are open with rumours increasing about the team making their own engines. Renault do need to continue to improve a lot to match Mercedes, but there has been progress.

Mostly this season it has been Red Bull who have been the second best team. I do expect that be the case again when they come to Silverstone which is less about straight line speed and more about the chassis and aerodynamics. This track was about power and with their current straight line speed issues it wasn’t going to be easy. But what is worse is that another problem with the power unit destroyed Vettel’s race, while Ricciardo was also restricted on how much power he could use from the Renault.

The scraps for points

Fernando Alonso battled hard as he always does. It looked like he might have a sniff of a podium but despite catching Massa a little towards the end he eventually dropped back to come home fifth in another race where Ferrari just didn’t look to have much improvement at all. Still Alonso shows how good he is by always exceeding expectations. In contrast Kimi Raikkonen could only bring the car home tenth in what is continuing to be an awful campaign for the Finn. He did have a nice moment with his engineer when he was asked to find a couple of more tenths per lap, he responded with ‘give me more power’.

Sergio Perez used his long first stint on the softs to end up on the super-softs for a short final stint which elevated him to sixth after a pass on Kevin Magnussen. He was 16 seconds ahead of his team mate Hulkenberg in ninth who seemed very disappointed to be beaten by Perez who had started six places behind him. Perez should have been ahead in Canada too, so Hulkenberg’s high regard in the paddock could be shaken a little bit if this continues to happen after Perez was rejected by McLaren.

Magnussen kept McLaren in the points with seventh while Button was disappointed to only get 11^th. Toro Rosso had a poor race after Kvyat had qualified a brilliant seventh, but retired with suspension failure while team mate Jean-Eric Vergne retired too with brake problems. Lotus, Sauber, Marussia and Caterham all brought their cars home. On the Red Bull Ring the only retirements were Red Bull cars, I guess that’s ironic.

So on to Silverstone where Lewis finds himself with a battle on his hands. He was leading strongly last year before a puncture ruined his race. Rosberg was there to pick up the pieces that time, he can’t afford for that to happen again.

all photo's taken from autosport.com