Nico Rosberg not only defeated Lewis Hamilton in the Austrian Grand Prix but also inflicted a level of damage on the world champion that was not so apparent in the German’s wins in Spain and Monaco. Rosberg was the stronger man here, coming from behind to beat his Mercedes team-mate with something to spare. Indeed, the German was better for most of the weekend, even in Saturday’s qualifying session when he was generally the more convincing despite Hamilton pipping him for pole.  Related: F1 Austrian Grand Prix 2015 – in pictures  This win has cut Hamilton’s lead to 10 points in the championship standings and, with the British Grand Prix at Silverstone coming up on 5 July, enlivens a narrative that had threatened to become a slightly tedious – the crowd on Sunday was a little more than half last season’s attendance in Austria.  Hamilton has been so dominant this season, at least on Saturdays, that he has won seven poles out of eight. But in terms of wins it is only 4-3 to him, with Sebastian Vettel taking the other race in Malaysia.  What Hamilton may find more perturbing is that there were extenuating circumstances for his previous two setbacks this year. In Spain, Rosberg started from pole and Hamilton from the dirty side of the track – he also suffered a messy pit stop and ultimately had three stops to the German’s two.  In Monaco, Hamilton dominated the entire weekend and, even though he was more culpable in his defeat than was immediately apparent, the decision to pull him in for an unnecessary tyre change was a major misjudgment by his team.  In Austria, Rosberg was simply superior, beating Hamilton as he did last year; the British driver will have to get his head around the challenges of the track built by the Red Bull team owner, Dietrich Mateschitz.  This was Rosberg’s 11th victory and he has never been more animated in triumph. There is every possibility that the title race will go to the final round in Abu Dhabi, just as it did last year. The only pity is that it is a purely internecine war.  Rosberg jumped Hamilton on the inside going into the first corner and then defended his advantage with ferocious determination. He said afterwards: “I had a good start and then good pace in the race – that is what I’m most happy about. I think I have found what I needed to find last year in terms of in the races and that’s what is really working out for me this year.”  A rather subdued Hamilton said: “I had a problem with the revs. I took my foot off the gas and the throttle was still on. It was not the best way to start the race but it is something we will work on to improve on my side of the garage.” Or Rosberg may just have caught him napping.  Before the pair came in for their solitary pit stop there was a five-lap period when Rosberg increased his lead from two seconds to four. Hamilton managed to reduce his disadvantage to 2.2sec but then, when the drivers pitted, Rosberg emerged the stronger once again. His stop was marginally the quicker (2.7 against 3.1) and the German built up his lead over the subsequent laps. When it emerged that Hamilton had crossed the white line at the pit exit, incurring a five-second penalty, Rosberg had in effect doubled his lead, from about five seconds to 10. But Rosberg would have won anyway. His only worry after that was some tyre vibrations in the closing stages.  The Mercedes motorsport chief, Toto Wolff, believes Rosberg exhibited the mental toughness in victory that will keep the championship race alive to the end. 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.”  Felipe Massa (Williams) and Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) were next, followed by Valtteri Bottas (Williams) and Nico Hülkenberg (Force India).  The race got off to a dramatic start when there was a heavy collision between Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen – drivers usually extremely adept at keeping out of trouble. It is no small irony that earlier in the weekend Raikkonen had said that F1 should become “a little more dangerous”.  The Finn lost his rear end and Alonso, with nowhere to go, clattered into the back of him, putting both out of the race. They were also lucky to escape injury. It was an even more wretched weekend than usual for McLaren, with both of their cars out of the race by lap nine. Jenson Button, who like Alonso had been handed a 25-place grid penalty, was told to retire, and said: “When you have a 10sec stop-go penalty retiring on lap nine is never a bad thing. I chose to have the penalties this weekend rather than Silverstone. Hopefully we will have a clean weekend there.”  McLaren said: “A brief and very disappointing Austrian GP for the team. Time to get our heads down for testing and Silverstone.” But to add to their long list of troubles this season the damage to Alonso’s car – which had the upgrades ahead of Button’s for the race – is likely to compromise the final in-season testing session this week.  1 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes 1hr 30min 16.930sec, 2 Lewis Hamilton (GB) Mercedes 1:30:25.730, 3 Felipe Massa (Br) Williams 1:30:34.503, 4 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Ferrari 1:30:35.111, 5 Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Williams 1:31:10.534, 6 Nico Hülkenberg (Ger) Force India 1:31:21.005, 7 Pastor Maldonado (Ven) Lotus at 1 Lap, 8 Max Verstappen (Neth) Toro Rosso at 1 Lap, 9 Sergio Pérez (Mex) Force India at 1 Lap, 10 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) Red Bull at 1 Lap, 11 Felipe Nasr (Br) Sauber at 1 Lap, 12 Daniil Kvyat (Rus) Red Bull at 1 Lap, 13 Marcus Ericsson (Swe) Sauber at 2 Laps, 14 Roberto Merhi (Sp) Manor at 3 Laps  Not Classified: 15 Romain Grosjean (Fr) Lotus 37 Laps completed, 16 Carlos Sainz (Sp) Toro Rosso 36 Laps completed, 17 Jenson Button (GB) McLaren 8 Laps completed, 18 Will Stevens (GB) Manor Marussia 1 Lap completed, 19 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 0 Laps completed, 20 Fernando Alonso (Sp) McLaren 0 Laps completed  1 Lewis Hamilton (GB) Mercedes 169pts, 2 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes 159, 3 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Ferrari 120, 4 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 72, 5 Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Williams 67, 6 Felipe Massa (Br)Williams 62, 7 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) Red Bull 36, 8 Daniil Kvyat (Rus) Red Bull 19, 9 Nico Hülkenberg (Ger) Force India 18, 10 Romain Grosjean (Fr) Lotus 17, 11 Felipe Nasr (Br) Sauber 16, 12 Sergio Pérez (Mex) Force India 13, 13 Pastor Maldonado (Ven) Lotus 12, 14 Max Verstappen (Neth) Toro Rosso 10, 15 Carlos Sainz (Sp) Toro Rosso 9, 16 Marcus Ericsson (Swe) Sauber 5, 17 Jenson Button (GB) McLaren 4, 18 Fernando Alonso (Sp) McLaren 0, 19 Roberto Merhi (Sp) Manor Marussia 0, 20 Will Stevens (GB) Manor Marussia 0, 21 Kevin Magnussen (Den) McLaren 0  1 Mercedes 328pts, 2 Ferrari 192, 3 Williams 129, 4 Red Bull 55, 5 Force India 31, 6 Lotus 29, 7 Sauber 21, 8 Toro Rosso 19, 9 McLaren 4, 10 Manor 0
Nico Rosberg overtook his Mercedes team-mate at the start and Lewis Hamilton’s fightback hopes were ended by a pit-lane penalty