Lewis Hamilton made it a Mercedes one-two, with Valtteri Bottas scoring his first podium. Here is a round-up of the driver's reactions. I was at the Austrian Grand Prix, reporting on it for Richland F1. See my blogs on the weekend:
"We stopped because we wanted to save some mileage. We were hoping for a safety car but it wasn’t coming. Obviously, it has been a bad first half of the season with a few retirements and other problems, but I guess it's part of the game.
"Equally we were able to learn a lot today and it’s good that Daniel got some points for us. It would be bad to say I got used to it, but obviously we have had a lot of problems so far already and I got calmer when the problem occurred. Our pace looked alright and we were able to go quite far on the soft tyre, but we were a lap down so in the end we decided to save some mileage."
That was an amazing weekend for us here. It was so great to be back again in Austria - for me, it felt almost like being at my home race in Germany! This is a great track, with amazing fans and at the end also with a great result for us. I have to thank the team for a great car and a perfect strategy. We chose the aggressive way to pit earlier and to overtake the Williams that way and that worked out quite well.
We had to look after our brakes, which was a big job for the whole race. Also this worked out perfectly for me. Before the weekend, my target was to extend the lead in the championship, which I achieved. So I can be quite confident before the next home race for our team in Silverstone. A great job also from Williams, they were the second force today. Congratulations to them.
Alonso pleased with fifth:
"I think that I can consider this to be my best race of the season, because finishing eighteen seconds off the Mercedes in a race without a Safety Car or any particular incidents, is a good result. It was impossible to keep Hamilton behind me and fifth place is really the best we could do today, because the first four cars were quicker and therefore deserved to finish ahead of us.
"We pushed hard all race without any problems, which means that little by little, we are improving. Sure, there’s still a long way to go but the aim is still to do well and score points. Each track is a different story and we will always try our best."
"For me in the car it was actually quite a good weekend. We finished the race which is positive and we made the most of the package we had today. We are losing a lot of time in the slow speed corners and we need to keep improving in this area to be more like our good high speed corner performance.
"Unfortunately we had some brake issues from very early on in the race so I wasn’t able to fight others around me, even though it was nice to be running in the top ten during the course of the race. After that, it was a case of saving fuel and brakes to get to the chequered flag. I think Silverstone will suit us much better."
Button had hoped for better:
"I’d hoped we could make up some places today, but it’s never easy to overtake around here. We went for a different strategy – starting on Primes – but it didn’t really work for us. At the start, Nico [Hulkenberg] pushed me wide at the exit of Turn One – there was no real need for that as there was enough room for both of us – so I lost a couple of places.
"From then on, my race was all about sitting in the train, waiting for people ahead of me to pit, and trying to make my strategy work – which in the end I couldn’t. It was a long afternoon’s work for 11th place."
Difficult day for Hulkenberg:
"It was quite a tough afternoon and more difficult than I was expecting. Inside the car I was struggling with the balance quite a lot, which hurt our pace and also had an impact on the tyre wear. So I think it was just a general lack of pace which stopped me from being able to get a better result.
"Checo obviously had better race pace, even though he was on a different strategy, so we need to understand why that was the case. It’s good to continue picking up points and I had some good battles this afternoon, especially with Ricciardo on the final lap. I was fighting hard to keep him behind but he had a tyre advantage and I could not hold him off."
"It was not a satisfying race. We made a mistake during the first pit stop, as the wheel nut on the right rear wheel was not secured, so I had to stop in the pit lane and my mechanics had to pull me back. Afterwards, I got a ten second stop and go penalty.
"Apart from this incident, I was trying to get the most out of the car. I got a lot of blue flags, so I had to let other cars by, which resulted in slower lap times. We tried by compromising qualifying in order to get a better race pace, but it didn’t seem to pay off. It was difficult to keep the tyres alive."
Kvyat encouraged by improvements despite retirement:
"I’m obviously disappointed with how today turned out, especially because everything was working so well this weekend and it seemed like a promising race. Our pace was strong, our updates and also tyre management worked well. The start was difficult, I lost a few positions but I managed to get a position back. From then on I was able to push hard and it looked like we could have a strong result.
"Around lap 26 I saw my rear right tyre blow up and I was forced to stop. I’m not quite sure what exactly happened, but we will now analyse everything closely and find out what the problem was today. On the positive side, we have made a solid step forward this weekend and I think it looks promising for the upcoming races, so I can’t wait to get to Silverstone where we will aim high again."
"It's difficult to explain how I feel right now. That was the best champagne I've ever tasted. All the hard work that the team puts in shows in moments like this. I had one pitstop that really put in me in the fight and that changed my race, so well done to the boys for that.
"I had put in a good lap before that and so I got in front on Felipe and from there I could manage my pace with the cars in front. Having both cars score good points is what we wanted and so third and fourth for the team is a great result. There are still two places to go up the podium, but for now we will enjoy this moment."
Chilton ran out of laps:
"We had a very good strategy today which enabled me to keep Ericsson behind and in the latter stages of the race, close the gap to Kobayashi. I had a really good second stint but unfortunately we just ran out of laps as the gap came down to only 2s. Generally I’m pleased with 17th after starting at the back of the grid today.
"It has been a positive end to the weekend but we’ve grown used to being able to focus on the cars ahead, not behind, so we need to recover a bit of ground for the next race to get us back on track. The next round is our home race, for the Team and for me, so hopefully we’ll find a little bit more pace to get us back where we need to be."
"I’m pretty pleased with my race today as the gap to our direct rivals on Friday looked like it would be much more than it was today.
“I had a really good start, passing a couple of cars, but we’d planned to stretch out the first stint on softs to around lap 28 so I didn’t want to kill them defending so early in the race. The first stop was good, going onto a set of new supersofts which performed really well until about 10 laps into the stint, and then they started going off so we boxed again on lap 43 for a set of softs to the flag.
"Unfortunately we had to extend the second pitstop by four seconds because of a Ferrari in the fastlane of the pitlane and that meant I came out about 12 seconds behind Chilton. The car felt good and within a few laps I had the gap down to around three seconds, but then the blue flags really kicked in and cost me a lot of time.
"They’re obviously part of the race, especially for us, and even though they make life even more tough, particularly on a small track like this, it’s still something I’m learning. We’re nearly halfway through the season and I’m definitely improving, and I’ll take that as another lesson – without that I think it would have been a much better fight to the flag, but 18th is still ok, especially considering where we were in FP1 and FP2."
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