The start of the Austrian GP was absolutely thrilling. Surprisingly Massa in his Williams was able to maintain his lead. His team-mate Bottas lost his 2nd place for Rosberg but only for a moment as by turn 2 the Finn had snatched his position back from the Mercedes driver. Hamilton took a splendid start from P9 jumping four positions up to P5! At the start of the race it really seemed that Williams could finally match Mercedes´ race pace. Sebastian at the wheel of his RB10 on the other hand had a catastrophic start to the race. On lap 2 the German reported on the team radio that he had no drive so his race was ruined! All of a sudden he got the drive back but at that point it was too late: the quadruple world champion was already one lap down!
Luckily Kimi had gained a position at the start and the Iceman was driving in P7. The battle for victory looked extremely intense: the top 4 drivers Massa, Bottas, Rosberg and Hamilton were all within DRS distance with each other. Rosberg was the first one of them to pit for a fresh set of soft tyres on lap 12. After the first pit stop Bottas rejoined the track right behind Rosberg but ahead of Hamilton. Massa was the one who lost most during his pit stop as he dropped back to P5. Force India´s Perez was leading the race at this point as the Mexican had a different tyre strategy and hadn´t pitted yet.
Perez pitted not until on lap 30 and the battle for victory intensified between Rosberg, Bottas and Hamilton. Massa wasn´t able to quite match the pace of those three. At this point it seemed that Bottas could really challenge the Mercedes drivers as his pace looked so promising. And Mercedes didn´t seem to have a problem-free race this time, either but again they faced some brake issues. At the halfway point of the race Sebastian´s race turned pitch-black: at the back of the field he tried to overtake Sauber´s Gutierrez and ended up damaging his front wing. A moment later Sebastian was told to come to the pits as there was no sense continueing the race. Considering the fact that Sebastian won´t probably get through the season with only 5 power units anyway this was the only right call to be made. I felt so gutted for Sebastian! Won´t these problems ever end? To be honest, Red Bull was lacking performance so badly at Red Bull Ring! I wanted to see Sebastian fighting for points today but all those hopes vanished already at the beginning of the race.
The second pit stop was a turning point for Bottas. It didn´t go perfectly in terms of timing and the Finn rejoined the track behind Rosberg and Hamilton. At this point it became obvious that the fight for the victory was going to be between the Mercedes team-mates as Bottas had already a several-second gap to the Mercedes duo. Kimi on the other hand faced another difficult race. The Iceman was driving in P11 and we got to hear some team radio communication in traditional Kimi style ;) Kimi was told on the team radio that he was racing Button and he should improve his lap times by two tenths. Kimi told the team to give him more power!
Rosberg´s gap to his team-mate stayed around one second and Hamilton had no real chance to challenge Nico for victory today. Bottas took his first ever podium finish, which was a staggering achievement from the young and fast Finn! Bottas´ performance gave me some joy although I was so disappointed due to Sebastian´s DNF and Kimi´s lame performance. Bottas´ team-mate Massa finished 4th and Alonso 5th, Perez 6th, Magnussen 7th, Ricciardo 8th, Hulkenberg 9th and Kimi 10th. But I´m sincerely happy for Bottas, who looked absolutely delighted when spraying champagne on the podium!
Rosberg has an upper hand now in the championship battle as the German now leads the standings with a 29-point gap over his team-mate. On the other hand, it´s not that huge a lead yet. It only takes one retirement for Nico and one win for Lewis and suddenly the lead has shrunk to 4 points only. I have a couple of wishes considering the British GP in a fortnight: I do hope Williams will be able to keep up the momentum and still challenge Mercedes on the British soil. And I do hope from the bottom of my heart that Red Bull Ring was the worst track of the season for Red Bull and they will be back on the very top when going to Silverstone! No wonder there were some Finnish swear words coming from Sebastian´s mouth this weekend... Though the Finnish F1 commentator Oskari Saari still hasn´t revealed what the German Red Bull ace actually said! ;D
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