Lewis Hamilton won the 46th Grand Prix of his career, his 25th for Mercedes. His win was the 250th for a British driver in Formula One, that’s 86 more than nearest rival Germany (164). He is the 22nd driver to win the Austrian Grand Prix. It now means there are just three tracks on the F1 calendar that he hasn’t won at, Baku, Mexico City and Sao Paulo.
It was the first time Hamilton had led at the end of the opening lap since he won his third title at the US Grand Prix in 2015.
Hamilton won his 54th pole on Saturday taking him to within 11 of his hero, Ayrton Senna (65).
The collision between Nico Rosberg and Hamilton on the last lap was the first time since Canada 2011 that the leader at the start of the final lap did not go on to win the race. On that occasion Jenson Button overtook a faltering Sebastian Vettel half way round the final tour. Ironically in that race Hamilton retired after a collision with his team-mate Button, a Mercedes driven by a German, Michael Schumacher (Rosberg’s then team-mate) also finished fourth.
Hamilton matched Nigel Mansell’s career total of 30 fastest laps and it was his 10th hat trick (pole/win/fastest lap). He also neatly ensured that car number 44 took Mercedes’ 44th fastest lap in the race he bagged his 44th podium position with Mercedes as a constructor.
Hamilton also became the first Formula One driver to surpass 2000 points in his career. Of course a slightly skewed statistic thanks to the changes in points systems over the years.
Kimi Raikkonen’s third place finish takes him back level with team-mate Vettel’s career total of 84 podium finishes. The pair now also are level in the world championship standings with 96 points each.
Raikkonen is now the only driver on the grid to have been on the podium when the track was known as the A1-Ring and now the Red Bull Ring. When Raikkonen first grabbed a podium finish in the Austrian Grand Prix in 2003 Max Verstappen was only six years old!
Verstappen’s second place meant he came very close to matching Jean-Pierre Jabouille’s unique record of scoring two wins with no other career podium finishes. Of course the podium finish ruled out Verstappen ever matching or beating the longstanding record. This was also Red Bull’s first podium at the track they named after themselves.
Third was Button’s highest starting position since the 2014 British Grand Prix where he also started third just ahead of the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg.
German Hulkenberg also achieved his best starting position since that race by starting second in Austria. It was his first front row since Brazil 2010 here he qualified on pole. Force India hadn’t been on the front row since the 2009 Italian Grand Prix with Adrian Sutil, one of the men Hulkenberg replaced at the team in 2014.
Fourth for Rosberg allowed him to match David Coulthard’s total of 121 F1 races in the points. He is now only nine behind fellow German Vettel (130).
That gearbox change penalty in qualifying ruined Rosberg’s streak of 14 consecutive front row placings, he was still ten away from Senna’s all time record of 24 though.
Rosberg topped both FP1 and FP2 on Friday. The first time he has topped a practice session since FP3 in Spain. No-one outside of Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull has topped a session in 2016 thus far.
Rosberg has now led as many races (48) in his career as double world champion Mika Hakkinen. He remains one win away from matching Hakkinen’s career total of 20, perhaps highlighting just how good Rosberg has been in recent years despite seeing his team-mate take back-to-back titles. He also surpassed Hakkinen to be the driver who has led the most laps of the Austrian Grand Prix in history, 144 laps.
Pascal Wehrlein became the 21st German to score a world championship point. It was the first points for the Manor team, then Marussia, since Jules Bianchi finished 9th in the 2014 Monaco Grand Prix.
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