Ambient 14° Track 27° Humidity 44% Wind 1-2 kmh
The 2015 edition of the Austrian GP was one and lost in the very first corner, as Nico Rosberg pulled a blinder of a start up the inside, neatly taking the lead into Turn 1. Although Lewis was right on him a safety Car 2 laps later, the result of the unfortunate love child of Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen coming together shut down the pursuit and it was never really close again at the top.
The race was not without incidents though and Rosberg gave himself a bit of a scare on the way into the pits by hitting the grass and almost losing the car. He was helped by a most unusual error by Hamilton, who, in his haste to exit the pits strayed across the line on pit exit lap 37, gaining a 5 second penalty and effectively ending the race for the top step lap 41 when the penalty was confirmed.
The rest of the field did was not bothered and it was the Maldonado Verstappen show at the end providing the most entertainment for all the reasons one might imagine, particularly the late move by Maldonado that caught Verstappen unawares, causing the man from Venezuela to most remarkably avoid a crash and then gain the position as Verstappen went straight on at Turn 1. No word as to whether young Max changed his braking point, however.
A good recovery for Ricciardo coming into the points after his penalty and after the loss of Alonso it was inevitable that Button would have to retire, making it a perfect race yet again for McHonda. Honda’s CEO must have been impressed, to say the least.
It also turned out that Ferrari was equally capable of giving away podium positions, this time to Massa as a result of another slow pit stop for Vettel just to keep things fair. Vettel valiantly fought back and was well within DRS the last 7 laps or so, but could not seal the deal and thus finished 4th. Once again, Ferarri’s vaunted race pace appeared to evaporate once Mercedes, you know, actually tried.
*********Stay tuned for the Race Review*************
Highlight of race for me had to be Massa struggling to find where he was to stand on the podium, is it the one on the left, hmm, 2nd doesn’t seem right, ah, there it us on the right.
Still life in the old dog !!
That’s a bit exaggeration I think. Massa isn’t that old.
Forgive my tendancy to sarcasm, I don’t for a second consider Massa too old for F1, but there is a worrying trend (Max fans etc) that suggests Massa is old, passed it etc. For me good enough is old/young enough, Massa showed well again vs Bottas, deserved praise.
On the podium though, not quite like his knocking over the champagne, just seemed funny that he was kind of lost up there, in a ‘been ages since i did this’ kinda way!
Yeah I agree with you. Especially on that lost part. lol
Rosberg won, I don’t think even the true believers can find an excuse for that this time. That was quite clear after the start.
For the other incident on 1st lap from the tv cameras I couldn’t really see what happened between Kimi and Alonso. First it looked like a hit behind, but not sure. After the accident from reaction neither guy seemed to be blaming the other. It looked like more both happy; maybe safe from the accident or just ready to go home after miserable weekend (I mean there was not much expectations after quali anyway ).
Don’t think anyone is suggesting otherwise, but the penalty kept HAM from trying to catch ROS thus depriving us of our fun.
That aside, late analysis suggests that the same throttle map that caught Kimi out in Canada did the same here. He spun the tyres, shifted spun the tyres again and collected ALO who was on his left as he tried to control the car
> Don’t think anyone is suggesting otherwise, but the penalty kept HAM from trying to catch ROS thus depriving us of our fun.
You should have a look at the Autosport Forum. I laughed my ass off about some of the outlandish theories bandied about how Mercedes deliberately prevented Lewis from trying to overtake Nico 😉
By making Lewis driver over the pit lane exit line?
Drive*
Even if he hadn’t got the penalty, he was never going to beat Rosberg. It was clear from Friday that he didn’t have the pace. So the moment he lost the lead, it was game over.
Crossing the line was not the defining moment of the race, that was on the first lap.
bruznic, do you drive one of those line making vehicles for living?
You seem oddly affronted by drives putting wheels on them. 🙂
This was directed at the remark of hippo that some people think mercedes staged this. I said how would mercedes do that? Make Lewis driver over that line to get a penalty?
Oh dear Fortis, you need to take care or you will expelled from Hamfosi party.
Matt, what difference did Lewis penalty make to the result?
Rosberg passed the flag first, the end.
Simply put there was no way HAM would get 5s down the road so both Mercs went into conservation mode once they got Massa and Vettel out of their pit window. I’m not saying that Hamilton would have gotten by Rosberg (don’t think he would have, TBH) but for sure he would’ve tried to close up at the end and given it the 2-3 laps his tyres could take. Which would have been fun to see. AS it was from lap 41 on it was nothing but a processional for the top 2 spots.
He didn’t look like he was going to catch Rosberg at any time to be honest.
Btw, Mercedes didn’t get Massa&Vettel out of their pitstop window.
“You should have a look at the Autosport Forum. I laughed my ass off about some of the outlandish theories bandied about how Mercedes deliberately prevented Lewis from trying to overtake Nico”
Just like when you bang on about how merc have been stage managing the races whenever lewis wins then? Lewis just didn’t have the pace this weekend. Simple. Just like nico didn’t when lewis won.
Waiting on ‘I now have an opinion’ valhalla to reply to this comment now.
I like “one and lost” it seems fitting.
Kimi….Kimi…Kimi…One can only “hope” that this was a mapping issue vs. driver clumsiness, but it probably won’t matter in the end. I would have loved to see him in red one more year.
It looks stupid, eh?
Still I think he’s not that stupid. It’s just a bad combination. And I know, bad combinations shouldn’t exist, because you just adjust. To me there are grey areas. But Kimi Does look close to the darkness…
Maybe not stupid but at best puzzling. I mean, we know Kimi can drive and yet it looks like he just can’t put a WE together this year for different reasons…
I’m just curious as to why the Ferrari cars have to do one lap after putting before the throttle software is switched back? It seems like another software glitch has caught out Kimi again.
‘Pitting’
Good point, Fortis… I too am curious about the whole situation with Kimi; especially these software issues. There are many unanswered questions, and Kimi does himself no favours by not speaking out in detail. It’s all quite odd to me.
In relation to the crash; I have a gif of the crash on my twitter feed and you can see how many times he corrects the steering, as well as how close the protruding McLaren floor/tea tray came to sliding over his head instead of just in front of him.
Curious…
I just find it strange that they’re the only team that uses a default throttle setting for the first lap after a stop.
Matt Somerfield on twitter suggested that it’s “mandated”, and for all cars.
Check out his interesting dialogue on twitter earlier:
https://twitter.com/SomersF1/status/612616896379252736
Kimi and Alonso crash…
https://twitter.com/wtf_f1/status/612599406840295425
The thing is why don’t they show us the same footage from Alonso’s point of view? Don’t they regard mclaren good enough to equip them with cameras? Alonso’s view would be more interesting for the first part of the crash for sure.
Exactamente, I´ve been looking for it but no go, maybe it surface later, there must be cameras on Samurais McCivic too.
Given that the Mclaren’s rarely finish races, I guess that’s why they’ve not activated their onboard cameras. I mean what will it show? It’s not like they’ll be racing close to anyone after getting pass the Manor cars.
Well, action is mostly happening down the grid as we have seen the last year and a half, I can not imagine your opinion holds, well, maybe because of the status of Manor for dear old Bernie, it´s like they have catch a VD.
The gangsta finished second after his worse weekend in months. And the whole race was dull. At least Maldonado made it more fun.
I’m wondering if Berger was drinking before he did the podium interviews? I mean how could he mistook Nico for Lewis whilst he was interviewing Nico for heavensake.
Nah, it´s because you me and he are utterly flabbergasted that it wasn´t Lewis on the top step!
Seriously, you are way too liberal with shitty accusations for an easy to make mistake, I have called my own kids with mixed up names countless times.
But I can understand you, the #2 driver was faultless and the British God of motoring and coming breaker of all records came up with a big nadazero on how to remedy the situation.
It´s hard, I feel you! I am a fanatical Kimi fan after all and want to give you a big Finnish bear hug.
Sorry, but what shitty accusation did I make?
But hey I understand it’s really easy to mix up the two, after all they do look alike.
Did he drink before the podium?
That is a shitty accusation in my book, maybe if you conduct your self according to Daily Mail ethical regulations it´s fine, but not for me.
Berger did a podium interview in front of his home crowd, I would have been shitting my pants, so I can empathise with the guy.
Maybe you are of harder stuff.
Holy crap It seems that I have offended you with my comment….. Oops!
Are you aware of the terminology called ‘figure of speech’?
You talk as if Berger is some novice who’s doing this for the first time.
“English is my third language but the one I use 99% of the time”
Doesn’t that make it your first language then? Although this is a completely random debate so who cares haha.
Pretty poor race again so I can see why there’s a a lot of agitation over nothing on here today. What else is there to discuss?
Are you gonna jump on every comment regarding Lewis? Don’t remember you being this vocal before this race. Calm the **** down.
He was clearly pissed.
Fair play to him 😉
No, he wasn’t. He was sober. Berger is a bit scatterbrained and often mixes things up when dragged in front of the media. He was never good at that. In a one-on-one interview he’s much better. He is also a bit self-conscious about his English. His German-language interviews are much better.
Hippo…
When I said ‘if he was drinking’ I did not mean it literally, it was just a figure of speech.
I’m sure you knew that’s what I meant.
Well done to Rosberg, he was the faster driver in the Mercedes all weekend except for Q3 where Hamilton just nailed the perfect lap at the perfect time. The penalty ensured that both Mercs would run in conservative mode and not try anything silly. Are there still any conspiracy theories about that ? Hamilton lost the race at the start, simples.