Should Williams have won the Austrian GP?

When you lock out the front row and run one-two for the first 14 laps of the race but only finish third and fourth, the obvious question is: 'what went wrong?'.

As Williams head of vehicle performance Rob Smedley put it, when asked whether the Austrian Grand Prix was a case of a win that got away or a 'three-four' to be celebrated, "we couldn't be competitive people if we didn't feel a slight twinge of disappointment."

Smedley explained that the Mercedes was the faster car. This was certainly the case. He had estimated by three tenths per lap after qualifying, in which Mercedes squandered its advantage.

But while it was closer than that in the race, the silver machines were slightly faster. Smedley also described Mercedes as a better-organised team. From that, can we infer that there was a more aggressive strategy that might have taken Williams to victory? Or at least allowed it to split the Mercedes?

MERCEDES HOT AND BOTHERED

Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton qualified third and ninth respectively, but a win was regarded as nailed-on and a one-two far from out of the question pre-race. That was before it emerged that the cooling both of the rear brakes and the engine package, specifically in the vicinity of the energy store deep in the bowels of the car, was a concern.

The Canadian Grand Prix had fired a warning shot at Mercedes. The relatively short straights of the Red Bull Ring did not offer sufficient cooling opportunities on a track featuring some deceptively demanding braking zones. So, from early in the race, Rosberg and Hamilton were ordered to take it easy.

The power-unit problem was not exactly the same as the one that cost Mercedes victory in Canada two weeks ago. On that occasion, components on a circuit board in the control electronics overheated and led to the MGU-K shutting down, leading Mercedes to introduce some more conservative protocols in case of worrying temperature readings. But it was similar in nature.

Massa kept first place at the start © LAT

"We did that [played it conservative] in the race today to make sure that we kept within the operating window we judged as safe," said Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff.

"But the moment you are in a safer, more conservative window, you have lots of other drivers chasing you and being much closer than before.

"Because the lap is so short here, because the brakes are hot, because it was hot today and because we had a bit of trauma after Montreal, we decided to play it safe.

By 'lots of other drivers', Wolff meant Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas.

ATTACKING AT THE FIRST PITSTOPS

Running order in stint one: Massa, Bottas, Rosberg, Hamilton.

Williams went into the race knowing that, realistically, Rosberg would be nigh-on impossible to beat, and that to finish ahead of Hamilton required the 2008 world champion to lose time early on. Hamilton ensured he wouldn't waste time buried in the pack by jumping from ninth to fourth on the opening lap, crossing the line within a second of Rosberg.

Massa led from Bottas, who had made a mediocre start and dropped behind Rosberg, but showed a calm head to drag-race his way past the German on the run to Turn 2. The Williams duo ran first and second with ease, partly thanks to prodigious straightline speed.

The life expectancy of the super-soft tyre was always short. At the end of lap 10, with the stops looming, Massa led Bottas by a second, with Rosberg just over two seconds adrift and Hamilton three seconds off the lead.

Mercedes knew that Williams, a team that had not claimed a podium finish since May 2012 and with a frustrating tendency to go home without as many points as it should this season, had to be cautious. There were question marks over the FW36's tyre management, and Mercedes expected Williams only to stop first if forced to by tyre condition. Advantage Brackley.

Rosberg pitted on lap 11, followed two laps later by Hamilton. Rosberg's in-lap was a tenth and a half slower than Hamilton's, but he was stationary for just 2.6s compared to his team-mate's 3.5s, so any danger of the Silver Arrows trading places was prevented.

Williams held firm and did not respond immediately. Massa pitted from the lead on lap 14. His in-lap was six tenths slower than Bottas's and the stop took 3.3s. Rosberg's four-lap undercut ensured he was comfortably ahead and, when Massa pulled out of the pits, he had Hamilton filling his mirrors. At Turn 2, the Brazilian was mugged by Hamilton after leaving the door wide open.

Bottas stayed ahead of Hamilton in the first pitstops © XPB

Bottas nailed his in-lap and benefited from the fastest pitstop in Williams history (2.1s) to re-emerge in front of both Hamilton and his team-mate. Bottas was wise to the fact that Hamilton would attack into Turn 2, so braked late. Slightly too late as it happened, but he managed to get the power down early enough to retain the position.

With Sergio Perez, driving superbly for Force India, up front thanks to starting on softs, the battle for victory ran second through fifth, with Massa relegated to the back of that pack.

The question is, should Williams have been more aggressive and either pre-empted Mercedes to try to retain track position or responded immediately?

"No, because from all the information that we knew at that time, and know now, I don't think we could have got to the end of the race doing that," said Smedley. "Even the strategy we did, we were managing tyres and tyre wear, trying to keep the wheelspin and the lateral acceleration down.

"It would have been gung-ho to have gone for it on that lap, and then you look like a bit of an idiot if you finish the tyres with five or six laps to go and cars come streaming past you."

The full extent of the Mercedes problems were not yet clear and, with track temperatures higher than they had been earlier in the weekend, Williams did not want to take the risk of lengthening its two short stints. It was the right call and, while stopping earlier might have kept Williams ahead, it might have come back to bite the team.

ATTACKING AT THE SECOND PITSTOPS

Running order in stint two: Rosberg, Bottas, Hamilton, Massa.

During the second stint it became emphatically clear that Mercedes wasn't simply playing it cool, but was genuinely marginal on temperatures. Bottas was challenged by Hamilton and, when Rosberg lost the rear approaching the apex of Turn 1 on lap 30 and had to correct, the Finn closed up.

Rosberg lost momentum and Bottas tried to find a way past, taking a look around the outside line into Turn 3. He couldn't make it work, but it was proof that he was firmly in the hunt for victory.

The second round of pitstops would be key. Hamilton, against team policy that dictates that whichever Mercedes is ahead pits first, was given the chance to stop earlier to undercut his way past Bottas. When pitstops began, Bottas was just over two seconds behind Rosberg and had Hamilton shadowing him.

Hamilton pitted at the end of lap 39. His stop was slow - four seconds, thanks to some minor damage to the brake shroud, potentially caused by mechanics having to readjust when he overran his pit box at the first round of stops. But his out-lap was rapid and his first flier was mighty, his fastest of the race.

An earlier pitstop would have helped Bottas © XPB

Bottas did not pit until two laps later. But two things went against him in his battle for second with Hamilton. Firstly, he lost 1.5s on lap 40 lapping Jules Bianchi's Marussia. That, combined with Hamilton's pace and a 3.4s pitstop - 1.3s slower than his first - contributed to his being 2.5s behind the Mercedes driver and third in the battle when he rejoined.

So should Williams have responded and pitted Bottas immediately? Yes, probably. It would have extended his final stint on softs to 31 laps - a risk, but given that he'd made 26 on his second set and the car would be lighter, not an extravagant one. But time would still have been lost behind Bianchi, and Hamilton would probably still have jumped him.

And the possibility of Bottas using the undercut to attack Rosberg and keep track position over Hamilton? Again, risky and it would have further extended his final stint. There would have been the danger of the tyres plunging off the metaphorical cliff and, with the tyre warm-up problems Williams was battling, the out-lap would have been challenging - but it could well have kept him ahead of Hamilton.

There's also an argument that, with Mercedes struggling, pushing Rosberg and Hamilton might just have tipped one of the cars into the danger zone and caused a mechanical problem.

But Williams was staring down the barrel of 27 points, more than it has scored in a single race since the 25-points-for-a-win structure was introduced in 2010. For a team in a rebuilding phase, this was not considered to be the time to roll the dice. The fact that Fernando Alonso was nibbling at Massa's heels late on underlines that.

"We came here thinking if there's 27 points on the table, we want them," said Smedley. "There hasn't always been 27 points on the table, and we went and got them."

Running order in stint three: Rosberg, Hamilton, Bottas, Massa

The Mercedes 'conspiracy'

Lest we forget, there was a championship fight going on up ahead of Bottas and Massa in the final stint. Mercedes was still making its drivers play it safe on temperatures, but both were given licence to use their overtaking buttons for maximum power on occasion (for equality, both were granted it at the same time, so Rosberg had it for defence just as Hamilton had it for attack).

The German kept his team-mate just out of DRS range, and there was a moment of drama on the last lap when he locked up at Turn 3 and ran slightly wide, but Hamilton did exactly the same so could not attack.

A frenzy of social-media traffic accused Mercedes of favouring Rosberg. The rather crude argument was that this winning margin of 1.9s was exactly the same as the amount of time Hamilton lost in the pitstops. But that reckoned without Hamilton's responsibility for overshooting his pit box at the first stop, which might well have led to time lost in the second stop too if that was indeed when the wheel-shroud damage occurred.

Mercedes' drivers were told to play it safe © LAT

The reality was that he compromised his race with mistakes in qualifying. Without those, he had the pace to start and finish ahead of Rosberg. Mercedes allowed its drivers to fight within the bounds of managing the machinery, but Hamilton could not quite make up for what he threw away on Saturday.

But for once in 2014, this race wasn't really about Rosberg versus Hamilton. It was about a team in the process of revival. Last year, Williams scored a pathetic five points. On Sunday, it became the only team to fight toe-to-toe with Mercedes so far in 2014.

Williams could have gone aggressive and perhaps it would have paid off. Second place was certainly very possible for Bottas, perhaps even second and third was possible for the team, had Massa not lost time in the first round of stops. And it was a mistake to wait for two laps before making his second stop once Hamilton had pitted.

But victory? A long shot, especially as Rosberg showed that there was some pace in reserve should it have been required by pulling out a small lead before his second stop.

For a team in transition, with the second-best car, third and fourth was a case of a job done. Next time, it can go aggressive. As Smedley conceded, Williams is learning how to win again and it could not afford to squander a strong two-car result again.

Given the burgeoning performance of Williams so far this year, there will be other opportunities.