Nico Rosberg was the first to spray champagne at the revamped Red Bull Ring after he won the 2014 Austrian Grand Prix. It seems fans, teams and anyone connected to the race has been drinking Didi’s kool-aid, because they can’t stop saying how much they love this place. We’ve even assembled our biggest gallery of the year so far to remind you of what went down in Spielberg.
We’re sorry to Valtteri Bottas that we can’t get a photo of him on the podium, but he’ll have to have a crack at Williams for being so tight with the images they release to the little people like us.
Meanwhile, Daniel Ricciardo explained a mistake at Turn 1 was responsible for a difficult day.
“It’s never nice going backwards on the first lap,” said Daniel. “Off the line, it was actually one of our better starts this year, although I think Kevin (Magnussen) on the inside got a better one.
“I tried to hang around on the outside, which was the wrong thing to do, because you basically lose too much on the exit. So I then got swamped on the long straight. We already struggle on the long straights as it is, but even more when you get a poor exit. So I was frustrated with myself and I will have to look if maybe I could have cut to the inside and done anything better.
“The last lap move put a little smile on my face, but other than that it wasn’t a great race for us—we’ve got a bit of work to do.”
The full transcript from the first three drivers is available after the break. It was nice to see Mark Webber doing the podium interviews, too. Although, we reckon it would have been better to see him racing in the Nürburgring 24 Hour race instead.
Nico Rosberg has won his third grand prix of the season after taking out the Austrian Grand Prix overnight. His victory margin of 1.9 seconds over Mercedes AMG teammate Lewis Hamilton sees the German extend his world championship lead to 29 points.
Hamilton started from P9 but put in a sterling opening lap to be fighting for fourth by the second lap. He did have some minor concerns with overheating brakes again, as did Rosberg, but they were still too fast for everyone else.
In third place was Valtteri Bottas for Williams. That’s the Finn’s best result in Formula 1 to date and as you’d expect he was very happy with his day, despite starting the race from P2.
Felipe Massa came home fourth and may have hoped for more after making a clean start from pole position. In the end the Mercedes pair had too much race pace and both were able to get ahead of the Williams duo during routine pit stops.
Fernando Alonso just went about his business as usual for Ferrari and put in another honest and reliable performance to finish fifth. The dual world champion has had an unspectacular year by his standards, but continues to achieve the best results available to him it would seem.
Sergio Perez collected good points for Force India with P6. Thanks to an alternate tyre strategy he led the race for a while, too, which he would be happy with after starting from P15.
McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen was seventh, his best result since he inherited P2 from Daniel Ricciardo at the Australian Grand Prix in the season’s opening race.
Ricciardo was the sole flickering light on a dirty day for Red Bull at its home track. Daniel finished eighth thanks to a last lap pass on Nico Hulkenberg.
Sadly for Red Bull, though, everything else went pear shaped. Sebastian Vettel momentarily lost power in the opening laps and seemed to be headed for retirement. His car did right itself for some time, but he was called into the pits to retire at around half-race distance.
Red Bull-owned Toro Rosso fared worse, with both cars retiring from the race without making any impact.
After a brief moment of respite from Ricciardo in Canada and Williams locking out the front row for this race, the status quo of a Mercedes one-two result has returned. Crucially, though, Nico Rosberg now enjoys the luxury of championship lead greater than a race win.
Well, that’s until we get to the double points race in Bahrain to end the year.
Following word the Austrian Grand Prix is expected to return to F1 Bernie Ecclestone has said there will be no more than 20 races in 2014.
The Russian Grand Prix will debut next year and if the New Jersey Grand Prix can get its act together we’re facing the prospect of a 21 race calendar.
“We will have 20 races, not more,” Ecclestone told Austrian paper Kleine Zeitung.
So, something has to give and it’s likely to be New Jersey. Indeed, Niki Lauda, Mercedes AMG F1 team non-executive chairman, has said, “As far as I know, it’s already gone from the calendar.”
It’s understood Red Bull has signed a seven year agreement to host Formula 1 races at its Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria, starting from next year. It turns out there are still some government-related hurdles to clear, relating to noise limits and spectator numbers.
“I don’t know everything else at the moment. Ask me again in the summer,” added Ecclestone. “Red Bull is very good for the sport, very good for Formula One. Everything is so professional at Red Bull, quality-wise at a high level. I think Red Bull will organise a very good grand prix.”
[Source: Planet F1 & crash.net | Pic: Red Bull/Getty Images]