F1 Austrian GP thread- Contains Spoilers of all session...

[Fernando]

[monty junior]

Mercedes 1-2 

[Guest]

Hamilton pole, Rosberg second & Vettel third. Strange ending with both Mercedes pushing & spinning off.

[dyrewolfe]

Well that was a weird final lap. Apparently Hamilton didn't have his tyres up to temp when he started his hot lap and Rosberg ventured onto some wet astro turf.

Looks like being another entirely predictable and uneventful race.

Vettel best of the rest and Williams looking strong again...brilliant final lap from Hulkenberg to split Bottas and Massa though.

Good efforts from Verstappen, Kvyat and Nasr to get into the top 10. Lotus looking well off the pace, with Grosjean just sneaking into 10th.

Shocking mess-up by Ferrari to have Kimi knocked out in Q1!

[dyrewolfe]

Well that was unexpected.

Nico nailed his start, not that Hamilton's was that bad, and basically wrapped up the race by the first corner. Surprised Hamilton couldn't close up and engage in some wheel-to-wheel racing. Anyway, no complaints about dodgy tactics or team strategies this time. Rosberg won fair and square and congrats to him. Uncharacteristic error from Lewis, crossing the white line on his pit exit, which earned him a 5 sec penalty, meaning he'd have had to beat Rosberg by that margin in order to win, effectively ending the race as a contest.

Great drive by Massa, though he had an assist from Ferrari who not only manged to screw up Kimi's quali but Vettel's pit stop to hand him 3rd. Vettel made a spirited attempt to get it back, but the Williams' Mercedes horsepower gave Felipe just enough to stay ahead. Bottas ensured a great weekend for Williams with his 5th place finish.

Good weekend for Force India with Hulk getting 6th and Perez 9th.

Sad really that the Massa - Vettel scrap for 3rd and 4th was the most exciting thing in the race.

Only other notable event was the first lap crash between Kimi and Alonso...looked nasty, with Alonso's McLaren ending up perched on top of Kimi's Ferrari, but luckily both drivers walked away unhurt. Seems Kimi lost the back end of his car as they accelerated out of turn 1 and slid into Alonso's path, with both cars sliding onto the grass a fair distance. Rosberg controlled the restart well and didn't give Hamilton a sniff.

[Guest]

Hamilton had setup issues all through the weekend, so it wasn't a surprise to see him whooped in the race. As soon as the penalty was given for crossing the line it was good night & a bore fest. Truly awful races we've seen this season, the close title fight keeps you hooked but it really is dire stuff this season. As for McLaren/Honda, it really has gone beyond embarrassing now.

[CaledonianCraig]

Good battles around for the midfield positions between the Torro Rosso's, Lotus, Force India, Sauber and Red Bulls. That aside precious little else to get excited about. A big crash between Raikkonen and Alonso and they are pretty lucky to walk away unscathed from that.

[dyrewolfe]

Hamilton had setup issues all through the weekend, so it wasn't a surprise to see him whooped in the race. As soon as the penalty was given for crossing the line it was good night & a bore fest. Truly awful races we've seen this season, the close title fight keeps you hooked but it really is dire stuff this season. As for McLaren/Honda, it really has gone beyond embarrassing now.

Dunno about "whooped". Lewis stayed within 2-3 seconds of Nico until the pit stop, then after he was given the message about his time penalty he seemed to just cruise the rest of the race, allowing the gap to get to 6-7 seconds, then pushing for the last few laps to close up again.

Couldn't agree more about Honda & McLaren though....mostly Honda it would seem. They replaced the entire powertrain on both cars and Button STILL had to retire pretty early on. Just pathetic. Even Renault weren't this bad during the first season of hybrid engines. They had reliability issues for sure, but not to this extent. They were down on power too, but at least Red Bull and Toro Rosso weren't languishing near the back of the grid.

[GSC]

Honda are probably a year early on entering F1 again to be honest.

Probably deserved win for Rosberg, seemed the more comfortable through the weekend. Evidence suggests he wont do it consistently enough though

[dummy_half]

For a few laps before the pit stops it looked like it could get interesting, with Lewis pulling back a tenth or so a lap and getting to about 1.5s, but then he'd have a bad lap and lose 0.5s and be back where he started. A bit like Nico in Canada, he just couldn't get close enough to mount a challenge, and I think this time Nico just controlled the pace other than for the last few laps when he was having a few issues with tyre-related vibration.

Some good racing in the lower points positions, but really the first 4 were just on a Sunday afternoon drive.

[Guest]

Title will go down to the wire again, there really is no challenge from Ferrari, even with the upgrade & Lewis & Nico will just continue to trade 1-2's all the way to the end. 

Elsewhere, it's all pretty boring. Hopefully the new Force India upgrade is good for Hulk's sake, he deserves something better. Not sure how much longer Ferrari put up with Kimi & this shambolic qualifying, that keeps putting him in danger on lap 1. I liked Kimi, but he's been a disappointment for me, not the excitement he used to bring.

[Jermaine2015]

Well that was a surprising result for Nico Rosberg. I'd go as far as saying it was his best ever race in F1. He beat Hamilton fair and square. And most importantly he actually made a race winning move. Looks like he's developing as a driver.

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