For a whole week after the finish of the Grand Prix of Austria all we discussed what happened on the last lap of the race, which was held at the Red Bull Ring circuit. The collision of two Mercedes team-mates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, and the subsequent failure of the Germans from the first to the fourth position infuriated the management team.
We are talking about what Lewis and Nico continue to fight ban by riders who will battle for the title, and the other will be in this to help him. But fortunately this did not happen — they only made a «final warning».
After Mercedes drivers escaped with slight shock, from the British Grand Prix — home race for Hamilton — all we are waiting for the continuation of the battle of the two bitter rivals. But it actually happened!
All sessions Brit was faster German — And the gap has grown in the course of the weekend. In the first of Friday's training session, Lewis showed the best time, ahead of Nico by 33 thousandths of a second. In the second Hamilton was again fastest, and Rosberg did not show any time — due to a failure in the cooling system of the German was forced to miss the entire workout.
Saturday's training session again ended the best time of the British racer Mercedes, plus his colleague was the second, but with a lag of 63 thousandths of a second. Finally, Hamilton excelled in qualifying with a much more decent margin — he was ahead of Rosberg already 319,000th.
And this result Briton put in not the most pleasant conditions for themselves. He was fastest in the first and second segments, and in the beginning of the third judge revoked his best result of the fact that he went too far «Cops» of turning. So Lewis was only one attempt — although the two fastest laps — the fact to show at least some results, with the best desirable.
But Hamilton — in great shape — it convincingly, showing the best time on the first lap. Nico Rosberg was unable to improve his result left second.
On the second row of the grid settled racers Red Bull Racing and the first time this season, Daniel Ricardo lost his qualifying duel to a teammate — that failed to make Daniel Kvyat did Max Verstappen.
Then — two pilots Ferrari, with Kimi Raikkonen was faster than Sebastian Vettel. But even the sixth place for the German would be a joy, because of the replacement of the gearbox Germans came down five places down — four-time world champion had to quit the race with only 11 places on the grid.
Following racers Scuderia qualification completed four riders of different teams — Valtteri Bottas of Williams, Nico Hulkenberg of Force India, Carlos Sainz of Toro Rosso and Fernando Alonso of McLaren.
Daniil Kvyat finished the qualifying races with only 15 times — during the final attempt in the second segment of Russians prevented him Kevin Magnussen. As a result, ufimets lost his team mate Carlos Sainz six tenths of a second — the Spaniard went into the third segment, and Kvyat no...
All prelaunch forecasts were decomposed and washed away a downpour that hit the track before the race and finished in ten minutes before the start. The organizers did not dare to start up and released the track the safety car for a vodivshy participants in the race for five laps.
The track gradually dry out, cool down the tires on cars, the brakes were working without proper cooling is getting worse and resulting in one of the turns of the race leader Lewis Hamilton almost crashed into the Mercedes-AMG GT Bernd Maylander. Fortunately this did not happen, and soon the race has finally begun!
But at the time of restart of most of the peloton turned into the pit lane to change to intermediate rain tires. On the track there were only leaders — Hamilton, Rosberg, Verstappen, Riccardo — as well as temporarily «won back» position Weight, Kvyat, Palmer.
Lewis immediately began to break away from his rivals, but on the contrary, not only Nico could not maintain his pace, but could hardly contain attacks Max Verstappen. On the rain tires Rosberg went from bad to worse...
But in the next few laps stopped in the pits all the other participants — despite the departure of Pascal and gathering Verlyayna track allowed to go on intermediate tires.
Stuck in the gravel pilot Manor unwittingly helped leaders — it was declared a virtual safety car mode and using it to replace the rubber stopped riders of the top three.
Curiously, the Mercedes managed to serve on one lap both riders — Hamilton gap was already so great that the mechanics had time to prepare for the second stop in a row without a hitch, and changed the wheel and Rosberg. On hand Nico played a small hitch in the Red Bull pits, where at that moment served Verstappen. The result — Lewis, Nico and Max went to the track in the same manner as before the arrival of the pit lane.
On lap 16, he drove into the pits Vettel to put slicks — Ferrari left the track on wheels ended Medium. Meanwhile, Max Verstappen has made perhaps the «overtaking of the year» — he is on the outer radius ahead of Nico Rosberg and came in second place.
But the second wave of pit stops, again stir the whole peloton. One by one the riders changed intermediate tires to slicks... and then the spectators sitting in the stands near the first turn, had seen enough to departures from the road!
Sebastian Vettel, Max Verstappen (twice), Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso (the most impressive turn of 720 degrees), Carlos Sainz, Rio Haryanto (gathering), Lewis Hamilton, Sergio Perez — all of them slips into the first corner and flew off the track. But all, except Haryanto managed to return to the track, finished with a loss of time.
The track was drying and the less it was wet on the segments, the faster driving Rosberg. Verstappen on the contrary, everything was going slower. As a result, the German caught up and beat Dutchman — Red Bull was competitive in comparison with Mercedes only in the wet...
Sebastian Vettel also tried to overtake — the German fought with Felipe Massa and actually repeated what did Nico Rosberg on the last lap of the Grand Prix of Austria. But the German «delivered» to the Brazilian external turning radius and pushed outside the track is not specifically — his Ferrari simply could not resist on the track and slid out. During this five-second penalty Seb paid.
But the most important racing event took place at the very finish. Nico Rosberg have problems in the gearbox. The team told him about it on the radio and on the driver issue that should he do now, from the bridge he was ordered not to use seventh gear, as well as to translate the controls on the steering wheel at a certain position.
With this year's FIA has imposed strict limits on the radio, and the judge decided that radio communications with his Mercedes driver went beyond permitted. The investigation went on for several hours — riders finished, the winners of the trio on the podium, the pilots received trophies, prize open the champagne, the fans went home... and the judge all sat!
In the end the decision was so — Nico Rosberg was an increase of 10 seconds for his final result. It would seem quite a bit, but it led to the loss of the conquered German second place — he dropped to third place, missing the second of Max Verstappen.
Having gained the victory at his home track Lewis Hamilton almost caught up with Rosberg in the championship — now they are separated by only one point. Cup actually starts all over again!
The fourth race finished Daniel Riccardo — this is the worst weekend of the season for the Australian, as he lost to Max Ferstappenu as the qualifications and the race...
Kimi Raikkonen finished fifth, followed by Sergio Perez, Nico, Carlos Sainz, Sebastian Vettel and Daniil Kvyat — Russian citizen to ninth position is not enough merely 946,000th of a second.
The next stage of the Formula 1 — Hungarian Grand Prix — will be held July 24.
Photo: XPB Images
