AUSTRIAN GP – RACE RESULTS

Report – Scuderia Ferrari finished fifth and tenth in the Austrian Grand Prix. Fernando Alonso started fourth but was passed by Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes after the start, finishing in the wake of Felipe Massa’s Williams, part of a quartet of Stuttgart engined cars at the front of the field. Nico Rosberg took his third win of the season, ahead of Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton. Finland’s Valtteri Bottas was third in the other Williams.

The Spaniard ran a consistent race, making no mistakes and he was often the fastest driver on track, but it was not enough to get to the podium. Kimi Raikkonen had to settle for tenth place, overtaken by Hamilton and Nico Hulkenberg, who had started behind him on the grid.

Rosberg has extended his lead over Hamilton to 29 points in the championship, while Alonso has closed the gap to four points off Ricciardo (eighth today) in their fight for third. Raikkonen is twelfth on 19, while Ferrari is third in the Constructors.’ The next round is the British GP at Silverstone in a fortnight’s time.

Final Results:

Pos Driver                Team                   Time/Gap
 1. Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1h27m54.967s
 2. Lewis Hamilton        Mercedes               +1.932s
 3. Valtteri Bottas       Williams-Mercedes      +8.172s
 4. Felipe Massa          Williams-Mercedes      +17.358s
 5. Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                +18.553s
 6. Sergio Perez          Force India-Mercedes   +28.546s
 7. Kevin Magnussen       McLaren-Mercedes       +32.031s
 8. Daniel Ricciardo      Red Bull-Renault       +43.522s
 9. Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes   +44.137s
10. Kimi Raikkonen        Ferrari                +47.777s
11. Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       +50.966s
12. Pastor Maldonado      Lotus-Renault          -1 lap
13. Adrian Sutil          Sauber-Ferrari         -1 lap
14. Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault          -1 lap
15. Jules Bianchi         Marussia-Ferrari       -2 laps
16. Kamui Kobayashi       Caterham-Renault       -2 laps
17. Max Chilton           Marussia-Ferrari       -2 laps
18. Marcus Ericsson       Caterham-Renault       -2 laps
19. Esteban Gutierrez     Sauber-Ferrari         -2 laps

Retirements

    Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Renault      59 laps
    Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault        34 laps
    Daniil Kvyat          Toro Rosso-Renault      24 laps

Drivers' championship            Constructors' championship   
 1. Nico Rosberg       165       1. Mercedes                 301     
 2. Lewis Hamilton     136       2. Red Bull/Renault         143
 3. Daniel Ricciardo   83        3. Ferrari                   98 
 4. Fernando Alonso    79        4. Force India/Mercedes      87 
 5. Sebastian Vettel   60        5. Williams/Mercedes         85 
 6. Nico Hulkenberg    59        6. McLaren/Mercedes          72 
 7. Valtteri Bottas    55        7. Toro Rosso/Renault        12 
 8. Jenson Button      43        8. Lotus/Renault              8  
 9. Felipe Massa       30        9. Marussia/Ferrari           2  
10. Kevin Magnussen    29        10. Sauber/Ferrari            0  
11. Sergio Perez       28        11. Caterham/Renault          0  
12. Kimi Raikkonen     19        
13. Romain Grosjean    8         
14. Jean-Eric Vergne   8         
15. Daniil Kvyat       4         
16. Jules Bianchi      2         

QUOTES

Raikkonen confused by bad pit stop timing: “For me it was really bad timing for the pit stop,” he said. “My tyres were not good. I lost two places on my in lap, but obviously I don’t know the reason. It cost some places and with the speed that I had, there was no way I could get it back. It was not very good.”

He struggled under braking on Friday and Saturday but the Maranello-based team made changes to the car. However, he does not believe the tweaks worked.

“We tried something different since Saturday onwards and I don’t think it made an awful lot of difference. Once you have decided to go one way you have to stick with it. That is what we did but it was not really different today.”

Kimi Raikkonen – “This was another very difficult race for me, despite having gone in a different direction yesterday to try and improve the performance. Unfortunately, it did not bring the improvements I’d hoped for and again here I found myself fighting the handling of the car. At the start I made up one place, but already on the second lap I began to have a problem with the brakes overheating and this meant I had to slow down. At the time of my first pit stop, my tyres were completely worn and on my in-lap alone I lost two places. We should definitely have stopped sooner. Compared to the start of the season, progress has been made, even if there’s still a lot to do as our speed still doesn’t allow us to fight for the top places.”

Marco Mattiacci (Team principal) – “The way this season is going becomes particularly evident when one races at a track where what counts the most is the power of the car. Today, we tried to get the most out of what we have and we believe we have taken another small step in the right direction. Unfortunately, we were unable to demonstrate that with Kimi, who did not have an easy time on this circuit, but we are sure that with the progressive improvement of the car he too will be able to show what he’s capable of. Fernando could not have done any better today. He managed to maintain a great pace for the whole race, at times even quicker than the leaders and this must serve as an incentive to continue developing the F14 T. Overall the gaps are coming down and the number of teams fighting it out behind the frontrunners is increasing. So our aim is to exploit all our potential to be at the front of the pursuing group.”

Kimi Raikkonen “At my first stop, my tyres were completely worn and on my in-lap I lost 2 places. We should definitely have stopped sooner”

— Connor (@cmckinleyF1) June 22, 2014