Nico took his third win of the 2015 season and the 11th of his Formula One career to date. Lewis completed a Silver Arrows 1-2 for the second consecutive season in Spielberg with P2. Felipe Massa and Williams made it an all Mercedes-Benz powered podium in P3. Lewis now leads Nico by 10 points in the Driver's Championship, with Mercedes AMG Petronas heading Ferrari by 136 in the Constructor's standings.
Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport: I'm very happy with the result today, especially at my and Niki's home circuit here in Spielberg. It's even more special because we have three Mercedes engines in the top three for the second year in a row; it couldn't be better. Nico drove a brilliant and dominant race today - he got a great start, had the upper hand on pace and made no mistakes at all. Both boys were right on the limit, as you could see when Nico came into the pit lane sideways for his pit stop! As for Lewis, his race boiled down to the start and the pit stop; he lost out off the line, which we will need to analyse, then looked to have a snap oversteer as he left the pit lane and put two wheels over the line. From there, he just brought the car home and managed the gap to Felipe behind. Like in 2014, we are seeing the advantage swing from driver to driver across the races, and I'm sure they'll be battling all the way to the end of the season.
Paddy Lowe, Executive Director (Technical): A fantastic result to achieve another 1-2 and particularly so at a home race for Toto and Niki. The start was not ideal for Lewis, so he lost the benefit of pole position. There was no particular issue - Nico just managed to get away slightly better and there was actually not much in it away from the line. After the very early safety car, it then became clear that Nico had a slight pace advantage over Lewis - but more importantly that our car was showing a bigger advantage than we had anticipated over Ferrari. It therefore became more of a battle between our two drivers up until the first round of stops. Lewis, of course, was then handed a time penalty for a very small error. The number of errors that either he or Nico make is very small indeed and I think this highlighted that rarity rather than presenting any cause for concern. From there, it became clear to Lewis that the race win was out of reach barring any dramas, which gave us the luxury of managing the cars home for a great 1-2 finish.
Christian Horner, Team Principal: "From the grid position that Daniel started from today, it was a strong drive from him to score a point. He effectively ran the race in reverse; running the slower tyre at the beginning of the race, and then fitting the softer tyre at the stop. Dany after a great start, with what was happening ahead of him, unfortunately made contact with the back of Perez. That caused significant damage to the underside of the car and from there the goal was to make it to the end of the race."
Thierry Salvi, Renault: "The results were pretty much as expected this weekend. We decided with the team to introduce the fifth ICE for both drivers, knowing we would have to take the penalties. We knew that they would make the race hard work and it was, but both drivers never gave up and at least Daniel could score some points. Now we have got the penalties out the way and have the latest spec of ICE on the car we have got a bit of breathing space to deal with the power unit elements for the next races. Silverstone should suit us better."
Felipe Massa finished third and Valtteri Bottas fifth in today's Austrian Grand Prix. After an early safety car, Valtteri and Felipe were running fourth and sixth respectively, before pitting for their one and only stops of the race. After Valtteri's pitstop he had to re-pass Hulkenberg to claim fifth, while Felipe capitalised on an error in the Ferrari pitstop and overtook Vettel. In the closing stages of the race Felipe held off heavy pressure from Vettel to claim his first podium of the season.
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: Third and fifth is a good result for the team. We wanted to get a podium today and so made the most of the opportunities we were given and we weren't going to let it go once we had it. We have kept quicker cars behind us on three occasions already this season which shows the great race craft the drivers have. Felipe did a great job under such pressure and Valtteri had a strong race with some very solid overtaking manoeuvres.
Maurizio Arrivabene: "Which positives can we take from this weekend? Not many, but certainly once more we are aware that Sebastian was the big asset we could get this year, together with a team which is fully committed and now is said to be the second force in the championship. But I'd like us to be the first, and that means we have to commit ourselves beyond what's possible. We must use whatever we have available and try to get as close as we can to our main competitors, taking advantage of their mistakes. Also, as per the time we lost during Seb's unfortunate pit stop, we must work with humbleness: because, even if everything had gone well, that wouldn't have been enough to beat both Mercedes on track. But this only prods us to never give up."
A difficult and disappointing weekend for everybody at McLaren-Honda. Starting from 19th (Fernando) and 20th (Jenson), both drivers were out after eight laps.
Fernando retired on lap one after Kimi Raikkonen lost control of his Ferrari ahead of him, at the exit of Turn Two. The collision resulted in both cars crashing spectacularly, immediately prompting a Safety Car to clear the debris.
Jenson boxed under the Safety Car to fit Prime tyres, with the aim of running an effective ‘one-stopper' to the finish. He then took a 10-second stop-go (a part of yesterday's grid penalty), but was then ordered by his engineers to retire the car as a precaution after suffering an intake system sensor failure.
Fernando remains for next week's test – he'll run on Tuesday, with Stoffel Vandoorne running on Wednesday.
Eric Boullier, Racing director: "Murphy's Law famously states ‘Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong'; as far as McLaren-Honda is concerned, this afternoon proved it 100 per cent correct.
"Having been relegated to the very back of the grid owing to a series of penalties, our drivers started today's grand prix in 19th and 20th positions. Before the race was even a lap old, however, Fernando was out, following contact with Kimi's Ferrari. It was a pretty big shunt, so the most important point is that no-one was badly hurt.
"A few laps later, Jenson's race had come to an end also, as a result of an intake system sensor failure.
"These are difficult days for all at McLaren-Honda, in Woking as well as in Sakura, but we won't let our heads drop. Okay, I admit it, the going is getting tough; but, guess what, when the going gets tough, the tough get going; well, we're tough, and we'll get going; just you wait and see."
Yasuhisa Arai, Honda R&D senior managing officer – chief officer of motorsport: "Austria has been a tough weekend. With such stringent penalties applied, it was always going to be a difficult race today.
"First and foremost, I am relieved that Fernando is okay. As for Jenson's car, there was an intake system sensor failure, which limited the power, so we elected to retire the car.
"We know that reliability is still an issue, and it is our priority to improve at every race. We will ready ourselves for Silverstone, including power output updates."
Sahara Force India scored ten points in today's Austrian Grand Prix as the team moved up to fifth place in the Constructors' championship.
Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal: "To come away from Austria with ten more points and fifth place in the championship is a tremendous result. We've shown good pace all weekend and it's very satisfying to convert that speed into valuable points. Nico drove a very clean and tidy race, and realistically it would have been difficult to have finished higher up the order. The same is true for Sergio who was on the opposite strategy to Nico, but made the progress he needed in the early laps on the soft tyres. Despite a slightly lengthy pit stop he was able to recover to ninth place and pick up a couple of points. It means that we remain very well placed ahead of our local race at Silverstone where we plan to introduce the next step for the VJM08."
Franz Tost (Team Principal): "The race started well for us today. Both drivers managed to do a good start, especially Carlos had a great first lap and moved up to P9. Max's pace was strong and even though he wasn't able to hold Bottas behind, the speed was good throughout the race. Unfortunately we lost some seconds behind Kvyat, which in the end cost us the seventh place as I'm convinced that if that hadn't happened, we could've kept Maldonado behind. In the end Max crossed the line in P8, which means more points for the team, but we can't be totally happy as our direct competitors scored more points than us. Carlos' pace was also good, but unfortunately he had a technical problem which we now have to analyse. Hopefully we can prevent this from happening at the next race in Silverstone. I would also like to say that the car worked very well thanks to the upgrades we brought here, so hopefully we can continue improving on the performance side and finish the race in the points with both cars next time out."
Cedrik Staudohar (Renault Sport F1 track support leader): "A very strong race for Max, with a good result on a challenging track. We were able to extract the maximum from the car and he fought hard to earn the points. Unfortunately we had a problem with Carlos' car. It started to lose electrical power and the lap times dropped off too much to remain on track. We will look at why so we can come back strongly in Silverstone."
Pastor Maldonado drove an impressive, measured race to take seventh position whilst Romain Grosjean suffered from a gearbox issue to halt his charge in the Austrian Grand Prix. Both drivers ran to one-stop strategies, with Romain starting on his qualifying super soft Pirellis and Pastor starting on the harder soft tyres. Pastor eked out a long performance life from the super softs, passing cars late into his final stint. Romain's car was brought into retirement at the end of lap 35.
Romain started from P9 on the grid on his qualifying super soft compound tyres, changing to new soft tyres on lap 23. He retired from the race with a gearbox issue on lap 35. Pastor started from P10 on the grid on new soft tyres, changing to new super soft tyres on lap 37.
Federico Gastaldi, Deputy Team Principal: "That was a fantastic drive from Pastor to take his second consecutive seventh position this season. It was a tough tactical race where he saved fuel in his first stint then managed his tyres, doing everything that was asked of him from the pit wall, plus showing us an incredible bit of car control right at the end too. We are sorry that Romain was unable to make the finish and we will do everything to diagnose and rectify the issue as he too was on course for a great result. Once more, with the pace shown this weekend, we have shown our potential to score strong points in the races ahead."
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: "That was a very lively end to the race to highlight a fantastic drive from Pastor. He did lose positions at the start, so after that we used a very aggressive strategy to get past Sergio Perez and thereafter Pastor managed the super soft tyres very well indeed for almost a half-race distance. This included a great dice with Max Verstappen in the final laps, which Pastor won to take seventh. Romain would have been well up in the points too but suffered from what looks like a gearbox issue so our joy is tempered by the knowledge we have to find and fix whatever issue affected him."
The Sauber F1 Team ended the Austrian Grand Prix in 11th (Nasr) and 13th (Ericsson). A disappointing result considering the starting positions 8th and 11th. Felipe Nasr struggled with overheating brakes, therefore, the Brazilian was not able to keep up his pace. Marcus Ericsson's race was compromised by a jump start, which cost him a drive-through-penalty. In addition, after an incident on lap one, the Swede had a damaged car which affected his performance and was followed by an electronic issue.
Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: "A very disappointing race because we had chances to score points when looking at our grid positions. For Marcus, the race was immediately affected by a jump start and a damaged car. Felipe had huge difficulties with the brakes, which compromised his race pace, so he was not able to keep hold of his position. We now need to find a solution for these issues."
Giampaolo Dall'Ara, Head of Track Engineering: "A day of missed opportunities. Marcus' race was compromised very early on by a jump start, which cost him a drive-through-penalty. Due to a damaged rear wing, he lost downforce which affected the performance of his car. Felipe had issues with the brakes that became severe during the second half of the race. Therefore he could not keep up with the pace, so he was not able to finish the race in the points. A disappointing Sunday for all of us."
Roberto Merhi's momentum continued in the Formula 1 Grosser Preis Von Österreich 2015 today, as he drove a strong race to P14, the team's best finish of the 2015 season. But there was disappointment on the other side of the garage after an oil leak on the opening lap put paid to Will's hopes that this could be Stevens' Spielberg.
The pair had lined up in P16 and P17 on the grid, ahead of Ricciardo, Alonso and Button. They both made good starts but just a short time later Will was forced to pull over after the team detected a sudden drop in oil level, pointing to an oil leak. Following the release of the cars from Parc Ferme, it was evident that a piece of debris had been ingested into the side pod and had punctured a hole in the radiator.
Roberto became the team's ‘lone ranger' and showed good pace to stay in touch with the midfield pack for much of the early part of the race.
John Booth, Team Principal: "We are obviously very pleased with Roberto's 14th place finish, which is our best performance of the 2015 season so far and a nice reward for the team's hard work and also Roberto's own progression over the past few races. Sadly, Will was less fortunate today, after a piece of debris from one of the first lap incidents damaged his radiator, causing him to retire just a few corners later. It's a shame, as reliability-wise we have been very strong again all weekend. We will focus on the positives, especially as we have our home Grand Prix to look forward to. It has been good to see the small but discernible steps we have taken with the car in recent weeks and races, so we'll be looking to continue that progress into Silverstone."
An early safety car at the Austrian Grand Prix meant that a one-stop strategy was the default choice for the vast majority of competitors. The safety car following the opening lap of the race meant that the cars ran slowly for four laps when they were at their heaviest with fuel.
Despite some spots of rain earlier in the day, the race remained dry with cool ambient temperatures from 16 to 18 degrees centigrade and track temperatures from 24 to 27 degrees centigrade.
All the drivers apart from Pastor Maldonado, Sergio Perez, Kimi Raikkonen and Daniel Ricciardo started on the P Zero Red supersoft tyre, which on Friday and Saturday had been about 0.7 seconds per lap faster than the P Zero Yellow soft. With a number of drivers running out of position due to grid penalties and other reasons, some teams chose alternative strategies with long stints to try and boost their final placing.
Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo ran for 50 laps on his original set of soft tyres, ending up in the points after starting 18th on the grid. McLaren's Jenson Button, who started last, also attempted an alternative strategy by switching from supersoft to soft on the third lap, but retired before he could reap the benefits.
Nico Rosberg won the race commandingly from his Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton. Both drivers used the same supersoft-soft strategy, stopping within two laps of each other on laps 38 and 40 respectively.
The teams will now remain in Austria for the first in-season test on Tuesday and Wednesday, where a number of third drivers will be taking the wheel as well as the regular pilots. Unlike last season though, there will be no dedicated Pirelli test days.
Paul Hembery: "We initially thought that a one-stop strategy would be more likely today, and this was put beyond doubt by the early safety car. Despite the cool temperatures, the tyres performed as we expected them to, with the drivers able to get the most out of their performance."
Truth-O-Meter
We predicted a one-stopper as the most likely winning scenario for the 71-lap race, and this is what Rosberg chose. Our prediction said that after starting on supersoft, it would be quickest to stop for soft on lap 25. In actual fact, Rosberg stopped on lap 33, aided by the early safety car.
