SPIELBERG: Nico Rosberg showed his championship potential by overtaking pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton on the first turn to win the Austrian Grand Prix in style on Sunday.

The German driver, runner-up to his Mercedes team-mate in last year’s Formula One championship, took an aggressive inside line to shoot past Hamilton heading into the first turn in an eventful race featuring a heavy crash between Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso and several more retirements.

Rosberg’s third win this season took his career tally to 11, and cut Hamilton’s overall lead to 10 points after eight of the 19 races. It left him on 159 points to his team-mate’s 169.

Felipe Massa finished third for Williams, matching his finish from last year. In the fight for the last podium spot, Massa held off Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari by just 0.6 seconds.

Finn Valtteri Bottas followed in the second Williams and German Nico Hulkenberg, who one week after winning in the Le Mans 24 Hours race, finished sixth for Force India.

Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado was seventh for Lotus ahead of Dutch teenager Max Verstappen of Toro Rosso, Mexican Sergio Perez in the second Force India and Australian Daniel Ricciardo, who picked up a point for Red Bull, after starting down the grid.

On another terrible day for McLaren, Jenson Button retired to join Alonso in the garage.

Rosberg likes the Red Bull Ring, where he won from third on the grid last year. This time he did it starting from second and came home a comfortable 3.8 seconds clear of the defending world champion.

“I will try from now on,” grinned Rosberg when asked why he did not drive every race like that. “It’s an awesome feeling of course to win again here. The start made the race. It really worked out perfectly today.”

Any hopes of a thrilling chase to the end were dashed when Hamilton collected a five-second penalty for a pit lane infringement on the 35th of the 71 laps.

“Nico did a fantastic job today. He was quicker during the race, I had a bad start which lost me ground,” said Hamilton in podium interviews conducted by former F1 racer Gerhard Berger. “I was pushing as hard as I could.”

Brazilian Massa finished a distant third for Mercedes-powered Williams after holding off Vettel, who had lost crucial seconds on his one pitstop when the wheel gun jammed on his right rear tyre.

“I just managed to keep the line and not make any mistake and just use a little bit of experience,” said Massa, who started on pole last year, after his 40th career podium.

Vettel’s team mate Raikkonen and Alonso collided and crashed into the barriers at the second corner, bringing out the safety car for five laps as the wreckage was removed.

The McLaren ended up on top of the Ferrari, fortunately without hitting Raikkonen’s head or hands, and perched on the barriers.

A worried Button, Alonso’s team-mate, asked over the radio: “Is Fernando OK?”

After 10 laps, Button could check for himself, after trundling back to the garage. McLaren have scored only four points this season since the transition back to Honda engines.

Published in Dawn, June 22nd, 2015

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