Rosberg holds off Hamilton in Austria to extend championship lead

Nico Rosberg held off Lewis Hamilton in the closing stages of the Austrian Grand Prix to take his third win of the season, and in the process, extend his championship lead to 29 points over his British teammate.

Coming into the race, Mercedes faced an awkward position having qualified in only third and ninth places on the grid. However, some good strategy calls(not good pit stops) on both sides of the garage and a quick first lap by Hamilton put both of them ahead of the two Williams in first and second place. From there, it was a fight till the end between the championship leaders with Rosberg retaining the race lead till the end of the race.

Third place went to Valtteri Bottas who celebrates his first ever podium finish in Formula 1, having already impressed everyone in the paddock by his speed in his debut season in 2013. Pole sitter Felipe Massa finished fourth having lost track position to his Finnish teammate in the second round of pitstops. Nevertheless, the result takes the Grove based outfit fifth in the constructors championship and within two points of Force India.

Fernando Alonso took fifth at the chequered flag having briefly led the race while Sergio Perez put on an impressive recovery drive from 16th on the grid to finish in sixth place. With heavy graining on rear tyres, Force India, like others, completed the race on a two-stop strategy. However, they did give the Mexican driver primes tyres to start with.

Kevin Magnussen in the lead McLaren finished in seventh place while a late pit stop by Jenson Button put him in 11th place and out of points. The result puts them behind past rivals Williams in the constructors championship despite the massive upgrade Woking based squad brought to this race.

Red Bull had a torrid day by their standards with Daniel Ricciardo the sole Red Bull points scorer finishing in eighth place after overtaking the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg during the final lap of the race.  Sebastian Vettel in the sister Red Bull lost drive during the first couple of laps during the race. And while he did recover to full power, it was too late with the quadruple champion already down to 22nd place.

Both the Toro Rossos retired from the race due to mechanical problems, thus indicating a poor result for the energy drinks brand at their home turf.

10th place and final points scoring position went to the second Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen.

Pastor Maldonado scored his best ever result of the season in 12th place, ahead of Sauber’s Adrian Sutil and teammate Romain Grosjean.

The relative positions of Jules Bianchi, Kamui Kobayashi, Max Chilton and Marcus Ericsson remained the same in the race as they were in qualifying.

by Rachit Thukral