Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton has won the Austrian Grand Prix for the first time in his career after a dramatic final lap collision between himself and teammate Nico Rosberg.
The drivers touched at Turn 2, leaving Hamilton to go off into the lead and leaving Rosberg with a damaged front wing under the front of his car. This allowed Max Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen to move into second and third, with the German dropping to fourth having led the final lap over the line. After the race, Mercedes said that they believed that Rosberg had a brake-by-wire problem at the time.
Hamilton had led the race from pole from the start with McLaren’s Jenson Button having a brilliant start moving from third to second as Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg started slipping down the order. Rosberg quickly moved from sixth on the grid up to third by lap eight as Button was passed by both Raikkonen and the Mercedes driver.
Some drivers started to make their first pit stops on lap nine, with Rosberg stopping on lap 11. However, the other front runners stopped much further on in the race, with Hamilton stopping on lap 22 after having a lead fluctuating from around three and four seconds. Rosberg got past Hamilton during the pit stops.
Raikkonen pit on the next lap, leaving Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari leading the race. This was the case until lap 27 when his right rear tyre sensationally failed on the start-finish straight, causing him to spin and cause the safety car to emerge. This gave Rosberg the lead.
Hamilton made his second pit stop on lap 55 with Rosberg following him in on the next lap leaving Verstappen in the lead. Rosberg passed Verstappen on lap 61 before Hamilton followed through soon after when Verstappen passed the backmarker of Renault’s Jolyon Palmer.
Hamilton closed up on Rosberg in the remaining laps, with a gap of half a second on lap 68 and a similar margin on lap 70, before the move on lap 71 saw Hamilton take the lead and the win.
Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo finished in fifth place, with McLaren’s Jenson Button sixth. Romain Grosjean claimed seventh place for his first points finish since the Russian Grand Prix, with Carlos Sainz in eighth for Toro Rosso.
Williams’ Valtteri Bottas finished in ninth place with Pascal Wehrlein scoring his and Manor’s first points in Formula One under that team name in tenth. This is the first point in the history of the team since the late Jules Bianchi’s ninth-place finish in Monaco in 2014 when they were known as Marussia.
Esteban Gutierrez finished in 11th for Haas, ahead of Renault’s Jolyon Palmer and Sauber’s Felipe Nasr. Renault’s Kevin Magnussen finished in 14th, with Marcus Ericsson 15th for Sauber and Rio Haryanto 16th for Manor.
Sergio Perez retired from the race, while McLaren’s Fernando Alonso, Hulkenberg and Williams’ Felipe Massa all came into their garages to retire between laps 65 and 66. Vettel retired on lap 27, while Daniil Kvyat was the first retirement of the race with his car stopping at the end of the first lap.
