Austrian Grand Prix 2016: 5 Bold Predictions for Red Bull Ring Race
The ninth round of the 2016 Formula One season will take place at this weekend's Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring, where Nico Rosberg will be hoping to extend his points advantage over Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
The German established a 43-point lead over the British driver after winning the opening four races of the campaign, but saw the gap quickly cut to nine following Hamilton's two successive victories in Monaco and Canada.
Yet after a stabilising win in the European GP, where Hamilton could only recover to fifth after a crash in qualifying, Rosberg stretched his lead back to 24 and will have the opportunity to extend it further at a circuit where he won in comfortable fashion in 2014 and '15.
With a look at a popular podium finisher, the difficulties facing Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa and yet more misery for a certain Red Bull-backed driver, here are five predictions for the Austrian GP.
Nico Rosberg Will Win After Beating Pole-Sitter Lewis Hamilton to Turn 1
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Is pole position on the wrong side of the track at the Red Bull Ring?
Sure, the No. 1 grid slot being positioned on the left-hand side of the circuit gives the driver on pole the advantage of starting on the clean side of the grid and an ideal trajectory into the right-hander of Turn 1.
But such is the nature of the track—the relatively short run toward the uphill, slightly blind entry into the off-camber, sharper-than-you-might-expect first corner—that the driver starting second can, with a marginally better getaway, steal the inside line and effectively prevent the pole-sitter from turning into the corner.
We witnessed it last year when Rosberg, second-best in an error-ridden qualifying session, snatched the lead from Hamilton at the start and went on to dominate the grand prix.
And, given the way the Mercedes drivers have performed in qualifying and off the line in 2016 thus far, we may witness a repeat this weekend.
Despite claiming three pole positions in China, Russia and Azerbaijan, Rosberg has been beaten by his team-mate in every qualifying session Hamilton has had a fully functioning car at his disposal this season.
And although Hamilton has never looked truly comfortable at the Red Bull Ring—making several sizable errors in one-lap conditions in the 2014 and '15 events—he should have enough to secure a fifth pole of 2016.
But—having explained Mercedes' clutch is "catching [him] out" following his poor getaway in the recent Canadian GP, per Autosport (h/t Eurosport)—will he be able to maintain his lead into the first corner?
After being muscled aside at Turn 1, Hamilton will retaliate on the long straights toward Turns 2 and 3—running the risk of a Spanish GP-style collision—with Rosberg managing to survive the early onslaught before easing to a sixth win in nine races.
Max Verstappen Will Beat Sebastian Vettel to the Final Place on the Podium
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Red Bull have had little to celebrate at their own track since the Austrian Grand Prix returned to the F1 calendar in 2014.
That year's race was defined by the fall of Sebastian Vettel, the most successful driver in the team's history, who was left to crawl around the circuit in humiliating fashion, instantly falling a lap behind, after suffering a temporary loss of drive at the start.
Things got even worse in 2015, when Red Bull effectively soiled on their own doorstep by taking 10-place grid penalties at a track that didn't favour the RB11 car and at a time their threats to quit F1 were growing louder by the week.
But now?
Now the car is strong enough to be competitive at most, if not all, tracks. Now, in Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen, they have the most exciting, dynamic driver lineup on the grid.
And now there is a sense the team have reset and revived the spirit of their four consecutive championship triumphs between 2010 and '13.
Despite the vast improvements to the Renault powertrain, the engine—on the evidence of Red Bull's performances in Canada and Azerbaijan—continues to lack the outright of the Mercedes and Ferrari units, which could cost the team on the three long straights of Austria.
Yet a potential saving grace for Red Bull will be the flowing corners in the final two sectors of the lap, where the standard-setting RB12 chassis should perform impeccably.
It would be appropriate if Verstappen, the symbol of the team's future, were to beat the ghost of Red Bull's past to the final spot on the podium on Sunday afternoon.
Kimi Raikkonen Will Start No Higher Than 10th After Qualifying Times Are Deleted
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It's happening again, isn't it?
Raikkonen was considered fortunate to earn a contract extension with Ferrari toward the end of 2015 after a sudden, sharp downturn in form at the mid-season stage, when he lacked pace and made frequent errors in the month between the Monaco and Austrian grands prix.
After a crash at the slowest corner in F1 led to his retirement from this year's Monte Carlo race, team principal Maurizio Arrivabene explained Raikkonen's mistake could be put down to the fact that "Kimi doesn't like Monaco, even if he won once here" in '05, per Autosport (h/t Eurosport).
Arrivabene's hope, of course, was that it would prove to be nothing more than a slight blip in an otherwise solid season.
Yet following a disastrous weekend in Canada, where he finished almost a minute behind Vettel after qualifying almost 0.6 seconds adrift of his team-mate, and a frustrating afternoon in Azerbaijan, where a five-second time penalty left him in fourth, Raikkonen has found himself under huge pressure once more.
And unlike 2015, when Valtteri Bottas was the only contender to replace him, there is a large collection of drivers—including Bottas, Daniel Ricciardo, Sergio Perez, Romain Grosjean and Carlos Sainz—queuing to take his seat.
In last season's Austrian GP, Raikkonen responded to that pressure by being eliminated from the first segment of qualifying before inexplicably losing control under acceleration from Turn 2 on the opening lap and collecting Fernando Alonso, and another series of elementary errors will follow this year.
Since the Red Bull Ring rejoined the calendar in 2014, several drivers have seen their qualifying times deleted for exceeding track limits at Turn 8, where carrying good speed into the downhill, medium-speed right-hander can gain crucial lap time.
It feels like a trap tailor-made for current-spec Kimi, who will be unable to string a clean lap together in Q3 and start several places behind Vettel.
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Felipe Massa's Strong Spielberg Streak Will Come to an End
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If, as expected, Massa is discarded by Williams at the end of 2016, his performance at the European GP will be recalled as the weekend the team's faith in him began to wane.
At the new Baku City Circuit, where all the drivers effectively started from scratch, Massa was considerably outperformed by Bottas, who dominated the Brazilian in the way he had been expected to since the pair became team-mates at the beginning of 2014.
It was no surprise that, during the weekend, Claire Williams confirmed the team "are talking to a lot of drivers in the paddock" over 2017, per Sky Sports' Pete Gill and Craig Slater. Jenson Button—having sidestepped questions over his future for so long—finally hinted he would be interested in a return to Williams, per Gill.
Like former Ferrari team-mate Raikkonen, Massa will enter the Austrian GP fighting for his F1 career.
But unlike the 2007 world champion, he does have strong recent form at the Red Bull Ring, having famously headed Williams' first front-row lockout in 11 years at the 2014 event before withstanding pressure from Vettel to register his first podium finish of last season.
With the FW38 car retaining the low-downforce characteristics of its two V6-powered predecessors, Williams are again likely to excel on the long straights of Spielberg, but could the weather harm the team's podium prospects?
Per F1 journalist Adam Cooper, F1 weather service UBIMET has forecast rain for qualifying day in Austria, which will reveal just how much Williams' formation of a working group toward the end of 2015 has improved their performance in wet conditions.
We suspect the effect has been minimal, and after qualifying out of position, Massa will be at the centre of any start-line shenanigans on race day.
Daniil Kvyat Will Not Start the Race After More Toro Rosso Technical Troubles
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Having become the first driver to be sent back to Scuderia Toro Rosso from Red Bull Racing earlier this season, Daniil Kvyat doesn't see a future for himself within the so-called Red Bull family.
Per Crash.net's Ollie Barstow, he admitted that while he was willing to "give everything" to Toro Rosso for the remainder of 2016, he is looking "for a change of the situation" and "help outside of Red Bull" for next year and beyond.
Although team principal Franz Tost recently hinted, per Motorsport.com's Jonathan Noble, the Russian may yet be offered a stay of execution due to a lack of alternatives, Kvyat understands it will be "easier to go forward with good results in your hand."
To him, his second stint at Toro Rosso is all about giving teams and potential sponsors plenty of reasons to keep his F1 career on life support.
To do that, however, Kvyat needs the tools to put himself in the shop window, and the Red Bull B-team have already let him down twice in that regard in the four races since his return.
An electronic issue on the grid in Monaco left him a lap down before the race properly began, with a suspension problem bringing a premature end to his most convincing weekend yet in Azerbaijan, where he outqualified team-mate Sainz by a healthy margin.
It would encapsulate Kvyat's season if more technical troubles prevented him from even starting the home race of Red Bull, the people who made him and who are now in the process of breaking him.
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