article: Media playback is not supported on this device He had the upper hand over his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton all weekend, and I think that's why Hamilton was a little deflated after qualifying. Pole position is pole position, but Hamilton knew he was not able to match Rosberg, especially in the middle sector of the lap, seemingly all weekend and that is something he is not used to. When Hamilton is confident, he delivers great performances. Take the wind out of his sails slightly and he goes into a sort of dead-calm scenario. He either has a strong wind or no wind at all. Rosberg's weekend, through practice, qualifying and race, was the performance of a world champion. He did everything he needed to do to confirm to people, and I'm sure to himself, that he has the beating of Hamilton. However, he has not delivered that consistently in the time they have been team-mates at Mercedes. If Rosberg can replicate it for the remainder of the season, we have one hell of a world championship battle on our hands. It seems to me that a greater part of Hamilton's performances come from pure natural talent than Rosberg's, and equally that Rosberg is more of a worker. At least that is the impression each gives to the outside world. If Rosberg can deliver performances like that consistently, his work ethic will make life difficult for Hamilton. Rosberg said after the race that he knew at the end of last season that he had to work on his racecraft, after coming off second best a few times to Hamilton. In Austria, he only had to race Hamilton for half a lap, but he did it very well. He converted second place on the grid into a lead at Turn One. He had to defend into Turn Two and into Turn Three, and it would have been easy in the circumstances to do what he did, for example, in Sochi last year, where he massively got it wrong having made a good start and locked up and went wide. Media playback is not supported on this device At the time, that mistake seemed to confirm that he was not able to take wheel-to-wheel racing to Hamilton. But in Austria he really did. Whether that was because Hamilton was already a bit on the back foot, we will never know. But, pole lap notwithstanding, if Hamilton was not quite happy with his car in one way or another, there is not a lot you can change between qualifying and race - it is limited to front wing, differential and tyre pressures. And there are some problems that they will not solve. Having seen Rosberg step up a level in Austria, I am now intrigued to see whether he can keep it up and repeat it at the next race, the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. If he does, that will be impressive and it is really going to bring this championship to life. But right now there has to be a question mark about that.
summary: Nico Rosberg drove as good a race as I have ever seen from him to win the Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday.