So, from now on I've decided to start Formula 1 review series filled with various remarks and personal views. First stop would be Austrian GP in Red Bull Ring, Spielberg.
After Friday and Saturday free practices the whole weekend looked quite promising. Ferrari has stopped Mercedes domination in charts for both free practice 2 and 3 and their newly set times seemed like the ones that would be able to challenge their rivals on qualifying. However, this time that wasn't the case even with both of Mercedes drivers Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton going off the track in the dramatic closing stages of Q3 as after struggling to adapt for the whole weekend Lewis Hamilton still took pole.
This meant the usual order this season during the start of the race: 1. Hamilton 2. Rosberg 3. Vettel.
With Hamilton having problems with his clutch Rosberg headed to a lot better start which ultimately helped him to take leader position and win the gran prix by overtaking Hamilton. Later on the media Rosberg called this one of the easier victories of his career as he was able to control the pace of the race afterwards.
Yet again after Friday practice session promising race and commentators teasing us that Ferrari will make Mercedes run for their money for the most part of the weekend, none of the predictions came true after all as Vettel's gap to the leaders kept getting bigger in the opening stages of the race. Now we know that highly improved Ferrari pace on free practice sessions was visible due to the lower levels of fuel used compared to the competitors. Now Ferrari team principle being unhappy with the results has noted, "I said to the engineers that it's better to go on Friday with a full, full tank so we can see a correct comparison instead of seeing a fake one".
But Ferrari woes did not end up here. One of the highlights of the race was Kimi Räikkönen's collision with Fernando Alonso. It was really scary to see Alonso McLaren flying over Kimi's Ferrari. A few more centimetres and the impact could of been completely different, glad that nobody got hurt. It was hard to see which of the drivers fault was the accident, replay kept showing viewers Kimi's on board camera footage while apparently Alonso camera was not on on the time. As Martin Brundle made a comment that "even on board camera doesn't work on that McLaren", which pretty much sums up their season for me. Later we heard on the interview that wheel spin caused Räikkönen to loose control of the car which resulted in the accident. Although stewards ruled out the collision as the racing incident. All in all, this incident resulted in first 2 retirements of the afternoon. And with only 14 cars left by the end of the race this would become second race with the most retirements of the season after Australia.
It was nice to see some overtaking action Valteri Bottas. Though what made race interesting again was unfortunate Vettel's pit stop which caused him 13 seconds and track position to Felipe Massa. And who told that undercuts could only go one way? This time a wheel nut was responsible for the failure which as we could see later caused Ferrari a secured spot at the podium. After gaining on Massa for the entire race Vettel was unable to overtake a Mercedes powered car at the end. That did not really surprise me as we have seen how previous Ferrari - Williams fights have ended. It looks like after being told about another Mercedes podium finish Vettel did not really seemed surprise after expressing his thoughts with laconic "Ah, surprise, surprise."
Afterall, it was nice to see Nico Hülkenberg's best season result as he finished 6, Red Bull receive at least 1 point after the event they thought would be a horrific home weekend. Maybe, nothing good enough to celebrate but points are points and 1 is better than nothing. Both of McLaren's did not finish again after Jenson Button having to retire too, only due to electrical problem. At least we could hear some more funny comments from Button about new parts on Alonso car that could now (after collision) go to the trash bin.
Although the race wasn't dull or anything for this time 7 seems like a bit too much.
6.5 out of 10
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