Having qualified behind his Mercedes team-mate in second place, a better getaway at the lights would nonetheless see Rosberg snatch the lead into the first turn, where he would proceed to control the pace thereafter.
Indeed, Hamilton was already struggling to keep up – slipping almost four seconds behind at one stage – even before he was slapped with a five-second post-race time penalty as punishment for crossing the white line on the pit-lane exit. Despite this, the gap back to third ensured he retained second place at the finish.
For the Mercedes pair, the race was ultimately decided the moment the lights went out, Rosberg’s more alert start seeing him comfortably ahead as they rounded the tight opening turn, ahead of Hamilton, while Sebastian Vettel and Felipe Massa remained as-they-were from the grid in third and fourth.
However, though the field would get through the tricky turn one without incident, drama would unfold coming out of the second turn as Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso suffered a spectacular coming together.
Prompted by Raikkonen getting out of shape on the exit of the hairpin as he pulled away, the Ferrari would snap and lurch to the left into the path of the close-following Alonso, who piled into the side of his rival. Riding up over the nose and getting caught as Raikkonen slid across the barrier, Alonso’s McLaren would subsequently come to rest perched on top of the Ferrari and the Armco. Despite the severity of the crash, both drivers were unhurt.
With the race resuming after a fairly lengthy safety car period, Rosberg instantly got the hammer down and began to extend his lead, inflating it to almost four seconds before a long lock-up into the hairpin caused a flat-spot and gave Hamilton a glimmer of opportunity when the German pitted for new rubber.
However, after staying out an extra lap longer, Rosberg’s subsequent fastest lap on new tyres would see him comfortably stay out front as Hamilton returned to the track, coming back around with a larger lead of 4.2secs. Nonetheless, even if Hamilton had plotted a charge for the lead from that position, his efforts would ultimately be negated by a five-second time penalty handed down as punishment for his indiscretion on the pit exit.
With little chance to overhaul Rosberg and add the five seconds on he needed to keep the win, Hamilton ultimately settled for second – safe in the knowledge the time penalty wouldn’t be threatened by the distant third position -, allowing his team-mate to clinch a second consecutive Austrian Grand Prix win, despite some late concerns over tyre vibrations.
Rosberg’s third success of the year, the win reduces Hamilton’s advantage ahead of his home British Grand Prix back to ten points.
Unable to pose a threat to Mercedes ahead, despite rapid pace in free practice, Vettel settled into third place early on, comfortably ahead of Massa, but a tardy pit-stop would drop him back behind the Williams driver.
Despite Vettel’s charge in the closing stages to pressure Massa into a mistake, the Brazilian would hold firm for Williams’ second straight podium and his first of 2015.
Valtteri Bottas completed the top five in a distant fifth place, the Finn taking 34 laps to get past both Max Verstappen and Nico Hulkenberg to leave him half a minute adrift at the chequered flag.
Having held the masses at bay early on, Hulkenberg nonetheless made the most of his third row grid slot to produce his and Force India’s best finish of the season in sixth place, a strong swansong for the current specification VJM08 ahead of the imminent arrival of the B-spec car.
Pastor Maldonado turned in a hard fought seventh place finish after prevailing in a fierce tussle with Verstappen for the position in the closing stages, the Venezuelan lucky not to crash with three laps to go when his Lotus snapped wildly under DRS ahead of turn one as he attempted to pass his rival. Exerting some impressive car control to keep the Lotus pointing in the right direction, in the end, Verstappen would run off on the exit of the same turn to hand the position to his rival anyway.
Despite losing out late on, eighth place nonetheless marks only the second time this season that rookie Verstappen has finished inside the top ten and is enough to put him ahead of team-mate Carlos Sainz overall.
Completing Force India’s strong race weekend, Sergio Perez put in a fine tactical drive to finish ninth, while Daniel Ricciardo made a long first stint of 50 laps work as he picked up a point for Red Bull on its home circuit in tenth place having started down 18th.
By contrast, Felipe Nasr couldn’t make good on his best ever starting position, slipping back to an eventual 11th and out of the points, while Daniil Kvyat endured a long afternoon after damage due to contact at the start with Perez left him with an ill-handling car.
In a race of fairly high attrition, Jenson Button compounded McLaren-Honda’s woeful weekend by retiring after just nine laps after more technical issues, while Sainz and Romain Grosjean also pulled in early with problems having been battling for points.