Rosberg takes second consecutive Austrian Grand Prix win

F1 Grand Prix, GP Austria, Red Bull Ring

Nico Rosberg has won the Austrian Grand Prix for the second year in succession, taking the upper hand on his team in the first corner of the first lap. Hamilton finished second, ahead of Felipe Massa who puts Williams on the podium again.

As the lights went out, Nico Rosberg enjoyed the better start and took the lead through turn one, thanks to his starting position being on the right hand side of the racetrack. Hamilton tried to recover on the next straight, but Rosberg smartly went defensive to keep his team mate behind. Vettel easily retained third, ahead of Massa, Hulkenberg. Verstappen is up next, gaining a position on Bottas who slotted in behind the Toro Rosso.

More action happened further back in the field when Raikkonen lost control of his car while accelerating out of turn 2. The Finn moved right, allowed Alonso to take a peek on the left and then veered left again as he spun his rear wheels. The move sent both drivers off into the barriers, with Alonso eventually coming to a standstill atop of the Ferrari, against the left hand barriers. Both men were unhurt, but a safety car was needed for 6 laps to get all debris and the cars off the track.

Half a lap later, Will Stevens came to a halt as well, following a firm request by his team to stop the car.

Before the safety car left the track, Kvyat, Ericsson and Button all pitted for repairs, with Button even completing two stops in the first 6 laps. As the safety car left the track to get racing again, Button soon found out nothing had been resolved, leading into a retirement on lap 8.

Meanwhile, at the front nothing much changed, with Rosberg soon breaking out of the DRS range of Hamilton, but not much more than that.

On lap 21, Marcus Ericsson runs into trouble with his Sauber. He lost drive for a moment but got the car going again following some direction from his team over the radio. Ericsson by that time was already running last, having had to serve a drive-through penalty for doing a jump start.

On lap 24, Bottas continued his resurgence by passing Hulkenberg through the outside of turn 4. 4 laps earlier he already managed a clean pass past Verstappen. 2 laps later, Bottas pitted to change to softs, only to rejoin the track behind Hulkenberg after the latter stopped one lap earlier than him.

On lap 34 Rosberg pits to change for softs. The German lost some time to his team mate in the last couple of laps due to obvious graining on his front super soft tyres. In addition to that, he slightly locked up while trying to stop in front of his garage, losing a tad bit more time.

2 laps later, Hamilton pits and rejoins in third, behind Rosberg who had just completed the fastest lap on his brand new soft tyres. Another lap later, Vettel pits from first place but his crew needed 13seconds to get all tyres fitted properly, the right rear in particular being a problem.

Meanwhile the battle for 5th was heating up, with Perez first, ahead of Maldonado, Hulkenberg and Bottas. The Williams driver however appeared to be the fastest, with Hulkenberg first getting passed, and next up Maldonado. Another lap later it's Maldonado who loses out another place as Hulkenberg moved up into 7th.

That wasn't a great moment for Lotus in any way, with Grosjean retiring from the race with a gearbox problem at the same time.

On lap 39, Bottas got past Hulkenberg as well, having into an 8 second gap to Vettel in 4th place.

Replays later showed Hamilton crossing the pitlane exit line during his pitstop, forcing the stewards to hand him a 5s time penalty.

The final section of the race was mainly about the battle for 7th, with Maldonado eventually getting the upper hand on Verstappen, even though it didn't happen without a scare. The Venezuelan violently broke out of the slip stream of Verstappen on the main straight and had to catch oversteer to keep his car on track. It was exciting, but still wouldn't have been enough if Verstappen would not have out-braked himself at turn 1.

At the front, Rosberg comfortably won the race, ahead of Lewis Hamilton who gets second, having enough of an advantage on Massa to stay second after application of his 5s penalty. Sebastian Vettel got fourth, despite trailing the Williams closely in the last 5 laps, having come back after a dismal pitstop.