It was Rosberg once again who managed to slay the Red Bull
Ring in this season’s Austrian Grand Prix. As a result, we well and truly have
a title challenge to relish for the remainder of the season.
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| The Silver Arrow stuns the Red Bull Ring. © Octane Photographic Ltd. |
Qualifying:
The drying conditions for Q1 lead to an early choice between
slick and intermediate tyres for initial pace. The changing track conditions
made for an unexpectedly exciting opening to qualifying with the time sheets
constantly overhauled thanks to impressive lap times from Sauber, Toro Rosso,
Lotus and even the McLarens to go alongside the Mercedes.
Although both McLarens will start from the back of the grid
due to receiving 25 grid place penalties for engine, turbo and MGUH
replacements (with time penalties during the race to make up for their
relatively short travels to last place), the floor, front and rear wing aero
updates to Alonso’s car did at least allow him to squeeze into Q2. The Spaniard
fractionally crossed the line ahead of Perez, and his teammate Button- racing
this weekend without the aero upgrades. Raikkonen failed to improve his lap
time as conditions dried and sped up, so he was left to return to the garage
having only qualified 18th ahead of Merhi and Stevens in the Manor
cars.
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| Raikkonen's post qualifying team radio reaction : "What? How the f*** is this possible?!" © Octane Photographic Ltd. |
As the track continued to evolve into Q2, no one was certain
of a top 10 grid slot for the next day’s race. Maldonado was the highest placed
driver to miss out in P11. He failed to match his teammate’s time and was
eliminated from the session. Ericsson qualified in 12th, as fellow
Sauber driver Nasr survived for Q3. A slight surprise with the former looking
the stronger early on. Sainz aborted his final flying lap resulting in a 13th
place. Ricciardo’s less than purple patch of form continues as he qualified
down in 14th. His first ever non-Q3 result as a Red Bull driver. Alonso
failed to make any inroads in Q2 and rounded out the top 15.
As the yellow flags waved at the end of Q3 it was hard to
absorb what we had just witnessed. Mistakes from 2 of the grid’s most
infallible drivers to deny a last lap frenzy. As the cars exited the pits for
one last time, Rosberg has 2 tenths to recover in order to close the gap to
Hamilton. But it was not to be. Not only did we lose the Brit into turn 1, but
Rosberg also lost his Mercedes around the final corner ensuring the time sheets
stayed the same. As a consequence, Hamilton claimed pole from a gravel trapped
Rosberg. Vettel was third. Last year’s pole winner Massa was 4th
ahead of Hulkenberg, the recently crowned Le Mans winner to give Force India
their best qualifying result of the season. Bottas was P6 ahead of Verstappen,
Kvyat and Nasr. Grosjean failed to run due to reliability issues.
NB: The Red Bulls have to serve a 10 place penalty for
engine changes.
The Race:
As the 20 car grid launched from their starting boxes it was
Rosberg who was fastest out of the blocks. Despite defensive work from
Hamilton, he was powerless to resist the German charge as Rosberg claimed P1
into the first corner ahead of Hamilton and Vettel who maintained 3rd.
This only fuelled Hamilton’s performance as he launched his attack to regain
the lead. However it was not to be as Rosberg played defensive and covered his
gearbox in order to stand his ground. No sooner had the audience had chance to
draw breath and the focal point was drawn to the back of the pack. There were
waved yellows as the camera cut to a shot of Alonso’s McLaren resting on the
chassis of Raikkonen’s Ferrari. 3 World Championships between them, and yet the
pair wouldn’t even make Sector 3. Prior to the race, Kimi’s charge through the
field had made for an exciting prospect, but it never materalised. Exiting Turn 2 and the torque from the
turbo-charged powertrain put the Finn into a slide which collected Alonso who
at that point became a helpless passenger. The McLaren boys will have been
disappointed not to have seen their upgrades in practice. Unusually Will
Stevens was forced into retirement due to an oil leak whilst following the
Safety Car ending his 100% finish rate in Formula 1 on Lap 2.
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| A potential championship changer? Rosberg leads into Turn 1 © Octane Photographic Ltd. |
When the Safety Car returned to the pits Rosberg broke
cleanly away from Hamilton to defend his lead as the field started their
seventh lap. So as Nico continued a
dream opening stint to his race, McLaren was suffering from their reoccurring
nightmare as on Lap 10 Button was instructed over radio to retire the car. The
stewards had their work cut out all weekend, this time they were dishing out a
drive through penalty to Ericsson for a jump start. Such is the unfolding of
the 2015 season that it was not until lap 22 where another noteworthy event
could be identified. On this occasion it was Ericsson again. He trundled to a
halt on the main straight before resetting the systems to continue on his way.
Lap 25 did make for some degree of entertainment. Bottas had
been closing in on Hulkenberg. With both being powered by the Mercedes unit it
appeared like a mock one on one battle to be the potential next Ferrari driver,
and thanks to the added assistance of DRS, it was Bottas who claimed this
particular round. Also worthy of comment
was the error in the Toro Rosso pit stop for Sainz. The front jackman dropped
the car by accident resulting in a delay. It seems as though the Toro Rosso
stops have cost their drivers a great many places already this season through frequent
and costly errors. Meanwhile back out on track and Grosjean rose to P12
following a close wheel to wheel battle with Nasr, the Brazilian rookie. Come
Lap 28 and the newly crowned Le Mans winner was not going to merely gift Bottas
track position, and so thanks to a fast pit stop and strong out lap, Hulkenberg
passed Bottas to rectify the earlier damage.
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| Hulkenberg trails Bottas © Octane Photographic Ltd. |
Despite the name sake and common owner, the Red Bull Ring
was proving to be no lucky charm for the constructors as on lap 30 Verstappen
passed Kvyat for 10th position. 2 laps later and the bad luck seemed
to have spread to the junior team as Sainz was called into retirement leaving
16 runners as we neared the halfway point in the race. On Lap 34 Rosberg was
called into the pits, and despite nearly failing to stop the car, he re-joined
the race following a slick team performance in the pit box. Ferrari however
were not demonstrating the qualities of what it takes to be leading the
Constructors championship by 105 points as they kept Vettel stationary for a
seemingly never ending 13 seconds following right rear complications. If in the
case of Vettel it was the team at fault, the same excuse could not be made for
Hamilton who was sanctioned with a 5 second time penalty for having crossed the
white line when exiting the pit lane and from then on it looked as though
Rosberg had secured the full 25 points bar any mechanical failures. However Grosjean fell victim to just such an
issue and was forced into retirement with gearbox gremlins.
Further up the road and the second Lotus of Maldonado would
not be deterred by his teammate’s woes as he gained two position in two
corners. First the Venezuelan passed Felipe Nasr before then overtaking Kvyat.
Possibly the highlight of his season so far. And by lap 51 Maldonado won the
duel with Daniel Ricciardo to pass the Red Bull for P8 as the Australian
battled heavily worn tyres. He subsequently pitted a lap later in doing so to
serve his 10 second stop-and-go penalty. Lap 66 and the replay camera was once again
focused on Maldonado who began flirting with another DNF following a dramatic
battle with oversteer when exiting Turn 1. What’s more, the man couldn’t leave
it there! On the back straight when attempting to pass Verstappen, Pastor lost
the back end of the car causing a massive tank slapper, somehow the car remained
out of the concrete and Maldonado survived a further scare.
There would be no such errors from Rosberg this weekend
though as he crossed the finish line at the end of his 71st lap to
take consecutive wins in Austria. Not only did the German also set the fastest
lap of the race, but crucially he beat teammate Hamilton in P2. Massa was 3rd
to claim his first podium of the season and back to back podiums for Williams.
Vettel was 4th from Bottas. Hulkenberg spurred on from his French
success was 6th. Maldonado in 7th to collect 6 points.
Verstappen was 8th, the highest place ‘Red Bull’ (of sorts). Perez
P9 and Ricciardo in 10th.
Nasr finished a lap down in 11th ahead of Daniil
Kvyat, Ericsson and Mehri. Grosjean, Sainz, Button, Stevens, Raikkonen and
Alonso were all not classified.
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| © Octane Photographic Ltd. |
With just a 10 point deficit to Hamilton in the Drivers
Championship, the F1 paddock lands here in Britain for Round 9. Silverstone
marks the proper start of the duel for the 2015 World Championship.
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