Rosberg extends his championship lead to 24 points; Vettel second ahead of Perez; Hamilton just fifth after power deployment issues
Monday 20 June 2016 06:32, UK
Nico Rosberg led from start to finish as the Mercedes driver secured an untroubled victory in F1's first ever race in Baku.
Courtesy of his 19th F1 win, Rosberg now leads the world championship by 24 points after his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton finished a distant fifth.
By leading every lap from pole position and registering the race's lap fastest lap, Rosberg also completed the second 'grand slam' of his F1 career on a near-perfect day for the German.
Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel was second with Sergio Perez rounding off the podium.
Despite knowing that Kimi Raikkonen would be hit with a five-second penalty for crossing the pitlane entry, Perez secured the seventh podium finish of his rejuvenated F1 career in style by overtaking the Finn on the final lap.
Handicapped by inconsistent power deployment, Hamilton spent most of his second stint falling further adrift from Sergio Perez amid mounting frustration in the world champion's cockpit.
With the ban on radio messages preventing his race crew from offering any advice on how to apply a fix, Hamilton's escalating exasperation prompted a series of increasingly-forlorn outbursts as the world champion threatened to "change everything on this car".
After finally pressing the right combination of switches on his steering wheel, Hamilton finished the race as the fastest driver on track but too far back from Perez and Raikkonen to make any further impression.
Mercedes subsequently confirmed that both of their cars had been afflicted by the same issue with Rosberg seemingly able to fix the fault quicker than Hamilton.
"Nico had made a change during the race that caused the issue. So when told it was an issue with the mode, as permitted by the FIA, he switched back out of it," Mercedes confirmed.
"Lewis had the setting from the start of the race and it was not obvious that this setting was causing the problem."
European Grand Prix full race result
Despite pre-race expectations of drama aplenty, the 51 laps otherwise passed largely without incident as 18 of the 22 runners made it to the finishing line.
Rosberg had complete control of the race after a smooth start off the line and the chasing pack was already a mere distant speck in his mirrors by the time Vettel overtook Daniel Ricciardo for second.
Both Red Bull cars were to endure a tough afternoon with the team gambling their race strategy in the hope of a Safety Car deployment that never materialised. That enabled Williams' Valtteri Bottas to grab sixth ahead of Ricciardo and Max Verstappen in the second RB12.
Nico Hulkenberg and Felipe Massa rounded off the top ten with six Mercedes-powered cars in the field finishing in the top ten.
European GP result
1. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1:32:52.366
2. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, +16.696s
3. Sergio Perez, Force India, +25.241s
4. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, +33.102s
5. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, +56.335s
6. Valtteri Bottas, Williams, +1:00.886s
7. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, +1:09.229s
8. Max Verstappen, Red Bull, +1:10.696s
9. Nico Hülkenberg, Force India, +1:17.708s
10. Felipe Massa, Williams, +1:25.375s
11. Jenson Button, McLaren, +1:44.817s
12. Felipe Nasr, Sauber, +1 lap
13. Romain Grosjean, Haas, +1 lap
14. Kevin Magnussen, Renault, +1 lap
15. Jolyon Palmer, Renault, +1 lap
16. Esteban Gutierrez, Haas, +1 lap
17. Marcus Ericsson, Sauber, +1 lap
18. Rio Haryanto, Manor, +2 laps
DNF Fernando Alonso, McLaren
DNF Pascal Wehrlein, Manor
DNF Carlos Sainz, Toro Rosso
DNF Daniil Kvyat, Toro Rosso
Don't miss the F1 Report: Baku review on Sky Sports F1 at 8.30pm on Wednesday with Natalie Pinkham, Marc Priestley and Mark Gallagher
