Vital talking point: Austria – ah, erm, err

As Formula One Grand Prix go, it’s fair to say that Austria wasn’t exactly a classic.

There have been far duller races in the history of Formula One, but the Austrian Grand Prix was easily forgettable.

So much so that our regular ‘Vital talking points’ column after each race is a bit redundant this week. There weren’t exactly many talking points to follow that race, let alone ones which can be perceived as ‘vital’.

The battle at Mercedes between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg was intriguing, in a constantly checking sector times manner, but on track there was little to get excited about.

The Red Bull Ring is a short, fast paced track where little tweaks and margins are exploited.

Rosberg had the measure of Hamilton throughout the weekend and with Hamilton struggling for set-up, he looked a distant second to Rosberg all weekend.

That made the pole position shoot-out all the more interesting, just how did Hamilton set that lap to take pole? Even with Rosberg on a hot lap on his second stint he may still have failed to pip Hamilton even if he hadn’t made an error on the last corner.

That was Hamilton’s only chance of beating Rosberg this weekend, but he couldn’t take hold of that advantage and due to an apparent clutch issue he lost the lead going into the first corner and that was pretty much that.

With Rosberg holding the advantage of choosing when to pit, with Hamilton left to wait, the German went on to cruise to an easy victory.

“I defended well in the first couple of corners against Lewis and then it was great to open up the gap, Last year, the race craft was where Lewis had an edge on me and I had to improve on that and this year it is coming good.

“Especially today it was one of the easier wins, not having pressure from Lewis behind. It was great to see I had the pace advantage over him.” Rosberg told the BBC after the race.

Hamilton said: “Nico was quicker today and I need to work on that, Positioning is everything here. If I kept the position I worked hard for yesterday [in qualifying], I would have been able to maintain it, but that was out of my hands at the start [clutch] so I am going to try to work as hard as I can to rectify it.”

Once again the threat of Ferrari didn’t materialise on race day and a sticky rear wheel cost Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel a podium finish, with Felipe Massa and Williams taking third.

Let’s hope that Silverstone can deliver a better race!