Dominant Rosberg powers to Austria win

Nico Rosberg produced a flawless display to beat Lewis Hamilton to win the Austrian Grand Prix, and subsequently close the gap in the title race to 10 points.

The Mercedes driver, starting second behind Hamilton, made a bullet start and grabbed the lead into the first corner.

From there he had the pace to comfortably keep Hamilton behind, although he was helped when the Englishman was handed a five-second time penalty for crossing the white line at the pit exit.

Felipe Massa took third for Williams as he held off a late charge from Sebastian Vettel in a tense finale, while his team-mate Valtteri Bottas finished fifth.

The race in Speilberg was tense and full of incident, which started on the first lap when Kimi Raikkonen crashed with Fernando Alonso.

The Ferrari driver lost control of his car on the exit of Turn 2, and he collected Alonso on his way into the wall. The McLaren man ended up on top of the Finn, in a terrifying crash which brought out the safety car.

Top 3 qualifyers 2015 Austria: 1. Hamilton 2. Rosberg 3. Vettel

By then, Rosberg was already in the lead, and he sped away at the re-start and set a series of blistering laps.

Hamilton couldn’t live with his pace, but he was not troubled by Vettel, who unexpectedly dropped back by a second per lap.

However, the battle for victory was effectively over at the pit-stops, when Hamilton ran across the white line as he rejoined the track.

This earned him a five-second time penalty, and he subsequently dropped back from Rosberg, content to take second.

Vettel’s pit-stop was even worse as a slow tyre-change dropped him behind Felipe Massa. He mounted a late charge, but Massa held on for a gutsy podium.

Elsewhere, there was more misery for McLaren who lost both cars within nine laps after Jenson Button joined Alonso in retirement with a transmission failure.

Romain Grosjean and Carlos Sainz also dropped out, but their team-mates, Max Verstappen and Pastor Maldonado, finished in the points.

Check out the full 2015 Austrian F1 GP results.

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