F1: Silver Arrows snatch a 1-2 at the Red Bull Ring

Nico Rosberg has won the Austrian Grand Prix in his W06! His teammate, Lewis Hamilton, finished 2nd in the race. Bar a mistake on his final qualifying lap, Rosberg has had the edge over Hamilton for pretty much the entire weekend. It showed that day, for Hamilton, in hot pursuit of Rosberg, accidentally crossed the pit exit line after his pitstop, giving him a 5 second time penalty. That, and the fact that Rosberg, despite having a technical issue towards the end, was simply faster. Felipe Massa joins the Silver Arrows duo on the podium, clinching his first podium of the season. Some may argue that his 3rd place was a gift from Ferrari after Vettel’s poor pitstop, but Massa had to work for the podium towards the end, defending well on older tyres in an inferior car to hang on to that spot. The Ferrari of Vettel, like previously mentioned, had issues with the right rear wheel nut, which meant the mechanics were unable to secure the wheel on properly on the first try. This meant the German lost his 3rd place to former Ferrari man Felipe Massa. Other than that, and the hard charge post-pitstop, Vettel drove a fairly lonely race to finish P4. However, his teammate, Kimi Raikkonen, didn’t complete lap 1; a massive and unexpected snap of oversteer sent SF15-T into the McLaren Honda of Fernando Alonso, resulting in a massive crash that could have ended a lot worse than it did. Thankfully both drivers were ok, even if Raikkonen looked a little annoyed. Williams scored their first back-to-back podium in 2015. However, Bottas wasn’t the one on the podium this time, as brake issues from early on in the race affected his pace, thus relegating him to P5.

OneShift Editorial Team

23 Jun 2015

Hulkenburg, fresh off his Le Mans victory, hopped back into the cockpit of his newly upgraded VJM08, and was able to hang on to P6 from start to finish. After some epic on track battles with the Toro Rossos and the Lotuses, he is the only man to finish on the lead lap. His teammate, who started way down the pack, managed to finish P9 after the team’s reverse strategy paid off.

Pastor Maldonado finished in P7. Maldonado’s points finish must have been bitter-sweet for the Enstone-based team. The E23 Hybrid may have shown great pace as compared to its mid-field counterparts, but reliability certainly wasn’t on their side, for under braking, Maldonado has had loads of instability. However, his pain is nothing as compared to another DNF for Romain Grosjean, this time, it was a gearbox failure that put the Frenchman out of the race.

Max Verstappen once again shows that he is a star of the future, with a stellar drive and several bold moves to finish in P8. He is the highest finishing Red Bull-backed car, after both Red Bull cars and Sainz’s Toro Rosso started down the order due to penalties. Unfortunately for the team, Sainz had tp retire due to engine woes.

Red Bull next. Daniel Ricciardo, who started way down the pack, drove a mighty first stint, chalking up close to 55 laps on his set of prime rubber. He was the latest driver to box for a fresh set of supersoft boots, which meant he could be qualifying lap after qualifying lap right till the end. Danii Kvyat suffered collision damage in lap 1, which forced him to not only make 2 pitstops, but to suffer enough bodywork damage to affect the car’s performance. His lack of pace, due to damage obviously, meant he could only limp home in P12.

Felipe Nasr looked set at certain points to claw at least a point in the race. However, as his brakes continued to overheat towards the end of the race, he was unable to hold on to said point. However, his issues are overshadowed by the horror show of a weekend for his teammate. Ericsson jumped the start, and as a result, was awarded a 5 second penalty for that. He then drove over debris left over from the Alonso-Raikkonen crash, damaging his front and rear wings. A pit stop was in order to switch out the damaged piece of carbon fibre, which further relegated him down the field. To add insult to injury, his Ferrari power unit shut off twice in the race, even though he was able to get going again both times.

Roberto Merhi may have clocked in Manor’s highest finishing spot for the year in this race. The Spaniard was relatively lonely at the rear, especially since the cars that are usually around him (think the other Manor-Marussia and the McLaren Hondas) retired early on in the race. Will Stevens retired due to an oil leak.

Finally, McLaren Honda. The update pack Honda brought for Austria failed, which may have triggered the complete change in powerunit and electronics for both cars. They were both put on Melbourne maps (i.e have the same power as they had back at the 1st race of 2015) in a bid to boost reliability. McLaren wanted to use this weekend to evaluate its new aero bits, which have been fitted to Alonso’s car. However, as data can only be collected if both the cars were actually running in race trim, it is safe to say that this weekend hasn’t been too fruitful for them. Despite that, both drivers appear to be upbeat and positive about the coming months.

Pictures used for illustration purposes only.

Credits: