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.
DAN IS THE MAN!
It’s always special when we can bring you a pictorial update of an Aussie winning a Formula 1 Grand Prix. It’s been a while between drinks, but let’s hope we see a lot more of young Daniel on the top step.
Hey, guess what Australia, Daniel Ricciardo just won the 2014 Canadian Grand Prix! His first ever F1 victory—how cool is that.
Here’s what he said after being asked what it was like to join the small but elite club of Australian drivers who have won a grand prix:
Yeah, it’s awesome. It’s still sinking in a bit. I’m just really pleased that I was able to – as I said – to really capitalise today on the opportunity. I could see it in front, when Nico was there and Perez was in between us. I was – like – if we can just get Perez, I think we’ll be able to make a charge on Nico. Really pleased. Yeah. It’s going to take a little bit to sink in but OK, so very proud, great to hear the Aussie anthem. It’s been a few years since I won a race, I think 2011, Monaco in World Series or something, so like three years, it’s a long time, standing on a top step. It’s a feeling I missed a lot.
You can read a lot more from Daniel, as well as Nico and Sebastian, after the break.
[Pic: Red Bull/Getty Images]
Daniel Ricciardo claimed his maiden grand prix win this morning with a thrilling victory in the Canadian Grand Prix. The 24-year-old Australian overtook Nico Rosberg’s failing Mercedes AMG with just two laps to run before taking the chequered flag behind the Safety Car.
While dicing for P4 in the closing stages Felipe Massa (Williams) and Sergio Perez (Force India) came together and crashed out in spectacular style, flying into the crash barriers either side of a fortunate Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull). The incident brought out the Safety Car and secured Ricciardo’s win.
Vettel escaped that late drama to finish the race in third. Jenson Button (McLaren) put in a late charge to claim fourth after overtaking Nico Hulkenberg (Force India) and Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) on the last flying lap.
Earlier, it was looking like the usual Mercedes procession we’ve come to expect in 2014. It wasn’t always perfect, Vettel got past Hamilton to briefly hold P2, but could not defend that position when DRS became available. Rosberg and Hamilton soon resumed their position at the head of the pack and cleared off into the distance.
The lead changed in Hamilton’s favour thanks to some scrappy work during Rosberg’s second pit-stop, only to see Rosberg regain P1 shortly after when Hamilton ran wide at the hairpin allowing his teammate to get by.
The Mercedes 1–2 result was scuppered, with 24 laps remaining, when Hamilton’s rear brakes faded badly forcing him into the pits to retire. Rosberg was plagued by the same problem but drove a masterful race thereafter under instructions to simply get to the flag. The chasing group, headed by Perez, closed in quickly on Rosberg but the German was able to do enough to maintain a lead of around one second.
Ricciardo made a race-defining move with six laps to run when he was able to force his way past Perez. His timing couldn’t have been better, as he soon overtook a backmarker in Esteban Gutierrez (Sauber) and set about chasing Rosberg. Gutierrez did his best to get out of the way of the group behind but stalled them enough to give Ricciardo some respite.
Rosberg still appeared to have enough to in the kitty to hold Ricciardo at bay, but on Lap 68 of 70 the Australian was able to get by the failing Mercedes with DRS on the back straight. The Perez-Vettel-Massa grouping had dropped back a little to give Rosberg some relief.
However, Vettel bullocked his way by Perez to take P3 and might have had reason to believe he could also chase Rosberg down. Any such thoughts were brought to an abrupt end when Massa clipped the left rear of Perez’s car, shooting both cars off track and out of the race. Fortunately both men appeared to escape injury and a necessary Safety Car brought an end to some chaotic and breathtaking racing.
After taking the chequered flag Daniel seemed to be in a state of disbelief and shock, such was the drama and speed with which the fortunes of his race changed. Once he stood on the podium’s top step for the first time, though, his trademark beaming smile was there for all to see.
Ricciardo was a popular winner and hearing Advance Australia Fair brought an equally broad smile to thousands of race fans down under who were rewarded for braving the 4am (AEST) race start.
Daniel becomes the fourth Australian to win a Formula 1 Grand Prix, joining Sir Jack Brabham (14), Alan Jones (12) and Mark Webber (9). He also moves to third in the drivers’ championship, behind Rosberg and Hamilton.
Nico Rosberg’s battle to wrest championship momentum from Lewis Hamilton took another step this morning when he claimed pole position for the Canadian Grand Prix.
Rosberg’s time of 1:14.874 was less than a hundreth of a second quicker than Hamilton’ best lap (1:14.953) and the Mercedes pair enjoyed a gap of almost half a second back to the rest of the field.
Sebastien Vettel (1:15.548) heads the chasing pack after pulling out a great final lap to elevate him ahead of the more fancied Williams duo and into P3. The Mercedes-powered Williams was expected to have the pace on the Montreal layout to claim the lockout the second row, but they have to be content with Valtteri Bottas (1:15.550) in P4, with Felipe Massa (1:15.578) in P5.
For only the second time this year Daniel Ricciardo (1:15.589) has been out qualified by his teammate and he finds himself starting from sixth. Amazingly, just 0.041 seconds separated P3 from P6 and Daniel says he could have gone faster.
“It was a bit scrappy on the final run, we made a couple of adjustments and it didn’t quite work out” he said. “We’ve made progress throughout the weekend and we were not too far off, but it’s disappointing to just miss out. The times were close, but it could have been better. Hopefully we can get a good start tomorrow and see how we go, the strategy will be interesting.”
The top 10 was rounded out by Fernando Alonso (1:15.814), Jean-Eric Vergne (1:16.162), Jenson Button (1:16.182) and Kimi Raikkonen (1:16.214).
The full starting grid, along with the post-quali press conference transcript can be viewed after the break.
Direct from the cashed up streets of Monte Carlo we bring you the best pics we could get our grubby hands on. So, go and get yourself a coffee, sit back and relive the 2014 Monaco Grand Prix.
Here’s the post-race presser from the Monaco Grand Prix. As much as we’d like Lewis and Nico to maintain perspective the media needs to take a chill pill too, with this whole teammate saga they’re trying to manufacture.
While you can’t read body language or tone of voice into this transcript, the two Mercedes drivers seemed to be as cordial as you can expect, despite some very obvious needling from the press.
Nico Rosberg won his second Monaco Grand Prix in succession overnight with a pole to flag victory that impressed everyone except his teammate Lewis Hamilton.
The Mercedes pair finished one-two yet again and for the most part enjoyed clear air to their inferiors fighting for third place. The form guide remained consistent with Daniel Ricciardo the best of the rest and for the last few laps he was right on Hamilton’s tail but as you night expect on the tight streets of Monte Carlo he was unable to find a way past.
Fernando Alonso managed to somehow find a space between P3 and P5 that meant he barely saw anyone else on track. It’s pretty hard to be unnoticed on this track, but Fernando managed to do that. He’s now gone 20 races without a win, his longest dry spell in the red team.
The so far unflattering return to Ferrari for Kimi Raikkonen looked set for some champagne after he made a banzai start from P6 and found himself in P4 at the first turn and P3 not long after. Alas for the Finn his race went south after the first pit stop when he suffered a puncture and was forced back in almost immediately for new tyres. His next highlight was gently stuffing his car into the tyres at Loews hairpin while attempting to pass Kevin Magnussen. Aside from inconvenience and pride no serious damage was done and he was able to continue on his not so merry way to P12, after a quick stop for a new nose cone.
Sebastian Vettel made a great start, too, and was quickly past Ricciardo, pushing his teammate down to P5. Soon, though, Vettel would be crying into his beer after the engine in his RB10 got hungry for cylinders. It sounded very rough and Vettel’s mood was not helped by seeing how many cars could pass him on a single lap and his race soon came to an inevitable conclusion.
Aside from that the race was a typical Monaco affair. Lots of attrition and the highlight was Jules Bianchi who picked up a couple of points for finishing ninth. He finished eighth on track, but didn’t line up on the grid correctly and was given a five second penalty. No matter, both he and Marussia were overjoyed at earning their first points in Formula 1.
The narrative for the immediate future in Formula 1 is going to be the rift between Rosberg and Hamilton, real or imagined. While understanding how desperate both men are to fight for the championship we’d like to think that both could keep a healthy dose of persepctive and enjoy the position of privilege they are in and find it within themselves to smile from time to time when they don’t get the chocolates.
Nico Rosberg will start the Monaco Grand Prix from pole position for the second year running following a dramatic qualifying session. He’ll start alongside his Mercedes AMG teammate, Lewis Hamilton, before further team pairings of Daniel Riccardo and Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) on row two and Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) claiming row three.
Rosberg set the fastest time (1:15.989) on his first run in Q3, a mere 0.59s faster than Hamilton’s best. The 2013 Monaco winner was the first of the front runners to start his second run and a lock up heading into Mirrabeau sent him down the escape road to avoid crashing into the tyre wall. That incident brought out local yellow flags meaning anyone behind had to slow through that corner leaving their second attempts thwarted.
The consipiracy theorists were quick to point out that with provisional pole already safe, and the fact that nine out of the last 10 Monaco Grands Prix have been won by the polesitter, that Rosberg had more to lose than he could gain and that his effect on the rest of the field may not have been so innocent.
A theory given oxygen by Lewis Hamilton’s icy claim in the post-quali press conference that he was “up a couple of tenths” on his final attempt at pole.
There was enough hot air in the sabotage theory to see the race stewards launch an official investigation before surmising, “The stewards examined video and telemetry data from the team and FIA and could find no evidence of any offence related to the turn 5 incident.”
We all know that Formula 1 can be a soap opera at times and the level of discussion heard following Rosberg’s innocent mistake and Hamilton’s churlish reaction is perfect proof of that.
Yet the mug punter sitting at home on the couch is the big winner, because tonight’s race is shaping up as an absolute ball tearer. Factor in the chance of some light rain on the streets of Monte Carlo and it’s pretty easy to state the race will be compulsory viewing.
It’s the Lewis and Nico show in this press conference. And with five wins from five races for Mercedes AMG you can understand why.
There’s some interesting stuff in there from Lewis discussing different driving styles to Nico and Michael Schumacher, which may explain why his early struggles with the team. Clearly, that’s all in the past now.
Daniel does get a few mentions, it was his first legal podium finish after all.