At a time when everybody was wondering if Nico Rosberg can beat Lewis Hamilton fair and square, the German driver put an end to all speculations regarding his current form.

I’d love to sit here and tell you that Rosberg drove like a maniac, like a man possessed, blew everybody away and won the race, but that wouldn’t be particularly accurate.

What he did do is drive like a machine. He was precise in his movements on the track and therefor consistently fast. He was the T-1000 out there and there was literally nothing Lewis Hamilton could do to catch up to his teammate.

Behind the two Mercedes drivers came Felipe Massa who lucked out when Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel had a bit of trouble in the pits. Vettel would eventually catch up to Massa during the final laps of the race, but couldn’t get passed the speedy Williams.

Fifth place went to Massa’s teammate, Valtteri Bottas, while P6 and P7 went to Force India‘s Nico Hulkenberg (a very solid race) and Lotus‘ Pastor Maldonado respectively.

Toro Rosso‘s flying teenager was spectacular yet again, managing to finish the race P8 ahead of Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo. In fact, it was delightful to see the Toro Rosso out-pace the Red Bulls like they were a bunch of Marussias out there.

The race was particularly eventful, as only 14 drivers managed to cross the finish line. It all started with Raikkonen and Alonso colliding on lap 1, when the Fin lost the rear of the car and snagged the McLaren which was in the process of overtaking him.

The crash was both weird as well as spectacular as Alonso’s McLaren ended up on top of the Ferrari. Luckily, neither of the drivers were hurt.

In 3 weeks from now, the F1 calendar switches to Silverstone for the British Grand Prix – another fast track that will undoubtedly fit the Mercedes-powered cars like the glove.

10 Random Things We’ve Noticed

– Have you guys seen that new McLaren-Honda nose? It makes the car look completely different as it also changes the livery slightly. The design is similar to what Red Bull are using and we could argue that it actually improves the looks of the car. Too bad we couldn’t get to see it in the race, since only Alonso used the new package (and he crashed on lap 1).

– Speaking of lap 1, and that crash, the live feed cut directly to Raikkonen ending up in the barrier with a McLaren on top of his Ferrari. That was genuine “what the..” moment for everybody watching the race. Initially the thought was that Alonso caused the crash by touching with the Ferrari but after the race it was concluded that Raikkonen lost the rear of the car for a moment (and in 5th gear!).

– Hello there! Marussia finally gets a sponsor on the side of the car and it’s ‘airbnb’, the apartment rental website.

– How can you not be impressed with Toro Rosso? These kids can really drive a Formula 1 car – which they proved once again in Austria. Well, Verstappen did, since Sainz retired on lap 35 because of engine power loss.

– Force India did promise their fans a faster car by Austria and they certainly delivered. In fact, the Lotus just couldn’t match the Force India in terms of performance, which was interesting since they both share the same power unit.

– Red Bull were terrible this weekend, weren’t they? Ricciardo finished 10th and it was the home race! Really poor showing result wise – though Ricciardo did say that he was pleased with his car performance-wise, since this track definitely didn’t favor the Renault power unit.

– You know how when something goes wrong with the car, the drivers get those messages through team radio from their race engineer, telling them to shut it down immediately? Those guys always seem to communicate those types of messages with the most horrible, passive-aggressive tone possible. Maybe they should try sounding sad for once and not make it seem like it’s the driver’s fault. I know that’s not what they’re doing but tone-wise, it sounds bad.

– What a great drive from Felipe Massa! In fact, both Williams cars showed tremendous pace, bringing them one step closer to Ferrari. They did luck out with Vettel’s pit stop problem though.

– Ah, now about Sebastian Vettel…we thought we would finally get to see a proper dog fight late in the race between the German driver and Felipe Massa. 3rd place was there for the taking, Vettel caught up to Massa but his Ferrari just couldn’t match the Williams’ straight line speed. The Ferrari was definitely better in the corners and under braking, but in Austria you need power most of all.

– I feel like we haven’t congratulated Nico Rosberg enough for this performance. He was genuinely great out there and funny as it may be, it was almost an exact replica of last year’s Austrian GP, when Rosberg also won with Hamilton coming in 2nd, and a Williams finishing 3rd (except it was Bottas, not Massa).

Red Bull Ring Race Results

1. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes
2. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes
3. Felipe Massa, Williams
4. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari
5. Valtteri Bottas, Williams
6. Nico Hulkenberg, Force India
7. Pastor Maldonado, Lotus
8. Max Verstappen, Toro Rosso
9. Sergio Perez, Force India
10. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull
11. Felipe Nasr, Sauber
12. Daniil Kvyat, Red Bull
13. Marcus Ericsson, Sauber
14. Roberto Merhi, Marussia