Nico Rosberg wins Austrian Grand Prix

Nico Rosberg overtook Lewis Hamilton at the start to win the Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday June 21, for a second successive season to close the gap in the Formula One world championship.

Rosberg past his Mercedes team-mate on the first turn and had control from there onwards.

Hamilton suffered a setback around the halfway stage with a five-second penalty after infringing a white lane on a pit exit.

The Briton had started in pole position but was slow off line giving Rosberg the chance to overtake him on the turn and stayed in command for his third race season win having won the Spanish and Monaco Grand prix.

Rosberg only scare came shortly during the single pit stops but he generally had full control of the race.

There were some worries towards the end with a serious front tyre vibration but the Germany was able to hold on and win the race.

The win means that the German has now got 11 career titles and he moved within 10 points of Hamilton in the standings.

The Mercedes motorsport chief, Toto Wolff, was asked how Rosberg manages to keep in touch with Hamilton, Wolff said: “I’ve been asked this before: ‘Is this the tipping point? Is he now going to be No2 [driver]?’ I kept repeating that he’s mentally very strong, and we’ve seen that today.

“Both of them are under pressure because they’re pushing each other so much. Nico was faultless. We saw from today it’s going to go down to the wire. The races we have seen have been characterised by tiny mistakes by both of them, or the team, and today we have seen great race pace and faultless execution by Nico. It was a great performance.”

Meanwhile Williams’ Felipe Massa held off Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari by just 0.6 seconds to finish in third earning a place on the podium.

Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari)  finished fourth followed by Valtteri Bottas (Williams)  in fifth place and Nico Hülkenberg (Force India) in sixth with six cars being retired before the 40^th race.

See Austrian race standing

See full 2015 driver standing

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