Valtteri Bottas would take his second Formula 1 win of the season, surviving a nail-biting finish to the Austrian Grand Prix to hold off Sebastian Vettel.
The Finn was under investigation over a potential jump start but his reaction time of 0.2s was deemed acceptable as he pulled out a near eight-second advantage over the Ferrari at one stage.
After the pit-stops, however, the gap was less than four seconds and the German closed to within DRS range for the final few laps, but Bottas was able to deal with the pressure, taking the chequered flag by just six-tenths of a second.
Daniel Ricciardo took advantage of a messy start to the race and made a bold move on Kimi Raikkonen on the opening lap to move up to third.That allowed the Australian to maintain pace with the two leaders and also hold off a charging Lewis Hamiton in the final few laps to take the last podium place at Red Bull’s home race.
That left Hamilton having to settle for fourth, after passing Sergio Perez and Romain Grosjean early on, after starting eighth, before undercutting Kimi Raikkonen in the pit-stop phase. Initially is appeared the 2007 world champion could come back and fight with the British driver after his later pit-stop but that would not be the case as he claimed fifth in the second Ferrari.
Romain Grosjean ran as high as fourth after the chaotic opening few corners, which saw a slow-starting Max Verstappen and a fast-starting Fernando Alonso both be taken out by Daniil Kvyat, before the Haas drier feel down to sixth, still a great result for the Frenchman in the Haas.
The Force India duo has a drama-free race, as Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon ran several seconds apart but still finished seventh and eighth.
Their closest challengers for fourth in the Constructors’ Championship, Felipe Massa and Lance Stroll at Williams, were able to recover from a disastrous Saturday but making up eight places at the start and promoting both cars into the points by completing the top 10.
Jolyon Palmer did look like threatening Stroll for the final point at one stage but would slip back as he matched his best finish in 11th for Renault, comfortably clear of Stoffel Vandoorne in 12th, after the Belgian picked up a drive-through penalty and his teammate at Enstone, Nico Hulkenberg.
The Sauber drivers finished 14th and 15th with Pascal Wehrlein having the upper hand in the head-to-head team battle, while Daniil Kvyat completed the classified drivers with a race to forget after a bad start followed by a drive through penalty.
The incident with Alonso and Kvyat meant Verstappen’s run of terrible luck continued with a fifth retirement in seven races. Kevin Magnussen’s woes continued after the suspension failure in qualifying as a suspected hydraulics problem forced him to retire in the race and finally Carlos Sainz retired for the third time this year and was frustrated with the repeating problems sarcastically declaring his race as “glorious” over the radio.
Looking at the championship, Vettel now leads Hamilton by 20 points ahead of the British Grand Prix in a week’s time. With his two recent positive results, Valtteri Bottas is also slowing closing back in, sitting 35 points behind the Ferrari and just 15 off his Mercedes team-mate.
