After Race 8: Austria

After a decade away, F1 returned to Austria at the renamed Red Bull Ring. Fresh off their first non-winning race, Mercedes also saw their 100% pole position record disappear. Alarms won’t be ringing just yet, however, as they returned to their customary 1-2 on Sunday. However, social media was rife post-race with speculation that the team are sabotaging Lewis Hamilton’s season with mechanical difficulties and slow pit-stops. These are extremely comical accusations – I was sceptical at whether it was even worth bothering to address these wild conspiracy theories. Hamilton had pole position for the taking on Saturday but he made a mistake. Granted, his pit-stops were slower on Sunday but to say that that was deliberate is a huge insult to the hard-working Mercedes mechanics.

What can’t be argued is that Rosberg has been luckier with reliability. The only thing I hope is that the championship is not decided by someone taking advantage of the absurd double points rule at Abu Dhabi. Hopefully, one driver will be 51pts clear or, preferably, they’ll be tied. It is likely that Rosberg will hit terminal technical problems at some point – but no guarantee, as we saw with Vettel in the second half of last season and with Schumi in 2002. On we go…

Merc scored their sixth 1-2 finish of the season
Source: Mercedes AMG Petronas (Facebook)

1. Nico Rosberg (up one spot)

Has the pendulum finally swung in Rosberg’s favour? It seems a strange thing to say given that Nico has led the championship after every race bar one but there seemed to be a feeling that if Lewis had a trouble-free weekend, he would win the race. Well, at the revamped Red Bull Ring, Hamilton was the master of his own downfall as he ran wide at Turn 8 on his first lap in Q3 and handed Rosberg the initiative. The German duly delivered and led home a Mercedes 1-2, as the team out-duelled Williams on raceday, extending his lead in the title race beyond 25 points.

2. Daniel Ricciardo (down one spot)

Firstly, congratulations to Dietrich Mateschitz and Red Bull for hosting a hugely entertaining event; packed with Austrian legends (and Chris Klien & Patrick Friesacher) on track in classic cars, a stunning air show, and lots of lederhosen and dirndls! As I’ve said before, it’s no exaggeration to say that Red Bull saved F1 in the mid-2000s with its continued sponsorship and expansion in multi-team ownership and its junior program. Unfortunately, that was as good as it got for the Red Bull family. Ricciardo (who again outqualified Vettel) was the only finisher in 8^th, a position he stole from Nico Hülkenberg with a fine move around the outside of Turn 5 on the final lap.

 

Red Bull's entertainment was far more successful than their actual race performace
Source: Red Bull Racing (Facebook)

3. Lewis Hamilton (no change)

The most high-profile casualty of the stewards’ new hard approach to enforcing track limits, Hamilton, saw his winless run extend into a third race. He’ll look for a home boost at Silverstone although it was Rosberg who took the checkered flag twelve months ago after Hamilton suffered an early puncture.

4. Daniil Kvyat (no change)

Ultimately, it was Williams who stole the headlines in qualifying but Daniil Kvyat put in a scorching run to take P7. He was running solidly in points-scoring contention when a suspension failure saw him head spectacularly into the gravel and into retirement. He also provided us with one of the highlights of the season – a terrific move on Pérez around the outside of T5 on the opening lap.

5. Sergio Pérez (up three spots)

This might be a bit of a controversial selection, especially as Hülkenberg has been Mr. Consistency this year; scoring points at every race. However, closer inspection shows that Checo has outperformed his team-mate in the last four races and put in another superb drive on Sunday to overcome his ridiculous penalty from Canada – something which he achieved on the opening lap. Like Canada, he perfectly optimized the alternate tyre strategy to race amongst the leading contenders and his pace was impressive: Pérez pitted on lap 29, Hamilton on 39, and in that period they ran comparable lap times – demonstrated by the gap being the same either end of that span. He also secured the third fastest lap of his career.

 

Despite his grid penalty, Checo found himself leading the race
Source: Sahara Force India (Facebook)

6. Jules Bianchi (up three spots)

To some this might be another surprise choice but Bianchi put in an excellent weekend to ‘win’ the Caterham/Marussia battle, and was chasing down Romain Grosjean before the checkered flag. After a rocky start to his second season, Bianchi is once again showcasing his credentials in his limited machinery. He earns sixth spot in this week’s F1 Power Rankings as he did what Hülkenberg, Bottas and Grosjean couldn’t do – outqualify and out-race his team-mate.

7. Nico Hülkenberg (no change)

No change for The Hulk as a rather underwhelming weekend was finished off by Ricciardo mugging him on the last lap. As I’ve mentioned before in the F1 Power Rankings, when the Force India is really good, it does seem to be Pérez who is able to extract the most. It could be tyre strategy, but this does now seem to be a recurring theme.

=8. Romain Grosjean (down three spots) & Valtteri Bottas (up one spot)

Eight Finns have started an F1 race and seven of them have now stood on the podium, that’s extraordinary! After a slight mistake cost him a shot a pole position in qualifying, Bottas benefited from a marginally better strategy than Massa to take P3 on Sunday. Could Williams have won? I’m not so sure. While they were battling in the closing stages, I still feel like the Mercs were within themselves, just making sure they did the minimum possible to secure a safe 1-2 after their recent (and I use this term loosely) woes. It was another weekend to forget for RoGro, and he was also outqualified by Maldonado for the first time this year.

 

Bottas secured a curious looking trophy with his maiden podium
Source: Williams F1 Team (Facebook)

=10. Fernando Alonso (up two spots), Sebastian Vettel (down four spots) & Felipe Massa (up three spots)

The clear heart-warming story of the weekend was Massa securing his first pole position since 2008 and, more importantly, the first since his near fatal accident at the Hungaroring in 2009. As mentioned above, I’m not sure whether Williams could have won but Massa can feel slightly aggrieved that he fell behind his team-mate during the pit-stops. Still, 4^th represents his best result thus far this season.

 

Felipinho was but a mere twinkle in his parents eyes the last time his dad took pole!
Source: F1 Fanatic

Despite flirting with Massa towards the end, Alonso was never quite close enough to challenge the leading quartet and wound up an eventual P5 after a rather lonely race. Not that it’s any consolation but he did lead some laps for the first time season.

 

Alonso led Ferrari's laps of the season
Source: Scuderia Ferrari (Facebook)

It was another nightmare Sunday for Vettel. Just like in Australia and Monaco, his RBR gave up the ghost early on. There was a somewhat magical resurrection a lap later but the team pulled him in early when to save components, both mechanical (eventual grid penalties are a near certainty) and front wings (having driven into Gutiérrez).

=13. Jenson Button (down two spots) & Kevin Magnussen (up two spots)

Not for the first time this season, the two McLaren boys find themselves locked together in the F1 Power Rankings. It was the rookie who had the better weekend with K-Mag qualifying a fine sixth, running in the points all day and finishing seventh – just losing out to Pérez in the closing stages. JB, meanwhile, had a trickier weekend. He missed out on Q3 having also had problems in practice but, crucially, fell behind the fast-starting Pérez on the opening lap. Thereafter, he couldn’t keep up with the Force India and, rather than challenging for a top-six finish, finished outside of the points. 

Magnussen had a good weekend in front of a packed house
Source: F1 Fanatic

15. Jean-Éric Vergne (down one spot)

It was a fifth DNF of the season for JEV as his reliability-stricken season continued. Brake failure eventually put him out although he was comprehensively outshone by Kvyat in both quali and the race.

16. Kamui Kobayashi (up one spot)

KK rises one spot mainly due to Räikkönen’s shocking form. Although he came up short in the battle against Bianchi, it was a solid weekend for Kobayashi as he comfortably outperformed his rookie team-mate; although it was a tad bizarre Caterham didn’t pit him once he lost the position given the state of his tyres.

17. Kimi Räikkönen (down one spot)

Just a miserable weekend for Kimi. Having made mistakes in quali, a decent start saw him run solidly in the early stages before he gradually fell to the foot of the top ten – and miles off his team-mate.

18. Pastor Maldonado (up two spots)

For the first time in six races, Maldonado moves off the bottom in the F1 Power Rankings after a solid, if unspectacular, weekend. He outqualified his team-mate for the first time this season but suffered a poor getaway. Nevertheless, he recovered thereafter to run a quiet race en route to a very lonely P12.

=19. Max Chilton & Marcus Ericsson (both up one spot)

Both drivers were comfortably outperformed by their respective team-mates in the backmarker battle. Chilton edged out Ericsson in both quali and the race (overcoming his grid penalty) but they’re level in this week’s F1 Power Rankings because Ericsson’s still a rookie, while Max should be closer to Bianchi.

=21. Adrian Sutil & Esteban Gutiérrez (down one spot)

If I left these two out of the F1 Power Rankings, would you even notice? Their atrocious season just gets worse and worse; both cars out went out in Q1 before Stevie G was slapped with a ten-second stop/go penalty for being released prematurely from his pit-stop (and a ten-place grid drop for Silverstone) while Sutil was accidentally told to stop himself. Yikes.

 

The Bull was tamed...
Source: Mercedes AMG Petronas (Facebook)

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