F1: Nico Rosberg cruises to victory at Austrian GP again

Mercedes driver repeats his 2014 success with comfortable victory at Austrian Grand Prix; teammate and world champ Hamilton is second

Spielberg (Austria): Nico Rosberg celebrated his 30th birthday with a third win in four races yesterday when he beat Mercedes teammate and series leader Lewis Hamilton to triumph in an incident-filled Austrian Grand Prix.


Mercedes' German driver Nico Rosberg (left) celebrates on the podium next to Williams' Brazilian driver Felipe Massa (right). Pic/AFP 

Super speed
The German driver, who left his twenties behind on Saturday, repeated his 2014 success when he came home a comfortable 3.8 seconds clear of the defending world champion and reduced his lead from 17 points to 10.

After eight of this year's 19 races, Briton Hamilton, who picked up a five seconds penalty in the race, has 169 and Rosberg, who won in Austria last year, 159.

It was Rosberg's third win of the season and the 11th of his career. Brazilian Felipe Massa came third, 17 seconds adrift of the two Mercedes men, six-tenths of a second ahead of four-time champion Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari, Finn Valtteri Bottas in the second Williams and German Nico Hulkenberg, who one week after winning in the Le Mans 24 Hours race, finished sixth for Force India.

Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado was seventh for Lotus ahead of Dutch teenager Max Verstappen of Toro Rosso, Mexican Sergio Perez in the second Force India and Australian Daniel Ricciardo, who picked up a point for Red Bull, after starting down the grid.

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