Lewis Hamilton edges closer to his third Formula 1 world championship by dominating the Russian Grand Prix following the retirement of his Mercedes team-mate and title contender Nico Rosberg.
The Mercedes driver went side-by-side with polesitter Rosberg on the rundown to Turn 2 on the opening lap, but Nico was able to keep the lead.
Then when the safety car was called into action for a first-lap collision between Nico Hulkenberg’s spinning Force India and an unlucky Marcus Ericsson, Rosberg encountered a problem with his throttle pedal.
He ran wide at Turn 2, allowing Hamilton to take the lead and then Valtteri Bottas into second.
Rosberg subsequently slowed, crawling back to the pits where he retired the Silver Arrows. This non-finish means he is now 73 points behind championship leader Hamilton with only one hundred still available.
As for Mercedes, the Brackley-based team will have to wait until at least Austin to unpack its constructors’ championship t-shirts as it failed to outscore Ferrari by the required three points.
It was Hamilton’s 42nd career win, putting him one clear of three-time world champion Ayrton Senna and level with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel.
Vettel finished in second position on track and moves into second in the drivers’ standings, though if Hamilton outscores Vettel by nine points and Rosberg by two in America he will be champion.
Force India’s Sergio Perez achieved Force India’s third-ever podium, after choosing to pit under a second safety car and running a long stint on the softs.
That safety car period had been caused when Romain Grosjean lost the rear end of his Lotus at Turn 3 and as he tried to corrected, the car wobbled the other way, sending him onto the marbles and into the barriers hard.
The Lotus driver walked away from the crash, but admitted he would probably feel a little sore the next day.
There was drama on the final lap, when Bottas passed Perez for third, with Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen following him through.
But Raikkonen then had a lunge at Turn 4, hitting Bottas at the apex and pushing the Williams into the barrier.
Raikkonen survived the damage to get to the finish in fifth, behind Williams’s Felipe Massa who produced a superb recovery drive from P15.
The race stewards confirmed they would investigate the collision between Raikkonen and Bottas.
Should Ferrari and Raikkonen get a time penalty, Mercedes would secure the constructors’ title. If not, then the US Grand Prix.
Daniil Kvyat finished sixth on his home track in the Red Bull ahead of Sauber’s Felipe Nasr and Pastor Maldonado’s Lotus.
McLaren scored points with both cars for the first time this season with Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso, celebrating his 250th Grand Prix weekend but 248th start, ninth and tenth respectively.
Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz was on course for a superb points finish having started at the the back of the grid after missing qualifying following a high-speed crash in final practice.
But Sainz appeared to suffer a brake problem, causing him to spin twice, once into the barriers, and then retire the car a few corners later with significant damage to the rear wing.
Team-mate Max Verstappen, who suffered a puncture on the first lap when clipped by the spinning Hulkenberg, was classified P11.
Ricciardo was on course to finish fourth, but pulled off track with six laps to go, suggesting something had broken on the suspension in the Red Bull.
The Manor-run Marussias of Roberto Merhi and Will Stevens completed the list of finishers at Sochi.
Russian Grand Prix, race results after 53 laps:
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:37.11.024
2 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari +5.953s
3 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes +28.918s
4 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes +38.831s
5 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari +42.358s
6 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull-Renault +47.566s
7 Felipe Nasr Sauber-Ferrari +56.508s
8 Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Mercedes +61.088s
9 Jenson Button McLaren-Honda +79.467s
10 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Honda +86.210s
11 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso-Renault +88.424s
12 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes DNF
13 Roberto Merhi Marussia-Ferrari +1 lap
14 Will Stevens Marussia-Ferrari +2 laps
15 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault DNF
– Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso-Renault DNF
– Romain Grosjean Lotus-Mercedes DNF
– Nico Rosberg Mercedes DNF
– Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes DNF
– Marcus Ericsson Sauber-Ferrari DNF
Drivers’ championship:
1 Lewis Hamilton 302
2 Sebastian Vettel 236
3 Nico Rosberg 229
4 Kimi Raikkonen 129
5 Valtteri Bottas 111
6 Felipe Massa 109
7 Daniil Kvyat 74
8 Daniel Ricciardo 73
9 Sergio Perez 54
10 Romain Grosjean 44
11 Nico Hulkenberg 38
12 Max Verstappen 32
13 Felipe Nasr 23
14 Pastor Maldonado 20
15 Fernando Alonso 12
16 Carlos Sainz 12
17 Marcus Ericsson 9
18 Jenson Button 8
19 Roberto Merhi 0
20 Will Stevens 0
21 Alexander Rossi 0
Constructors’ championship:
1 Mercedes 531
2 Ferrari 365
3 Williams-Mercedes 220
4 Red Bull-Renault 147
5 Force India-Mercedes 92
6 Lotus-Mercedes 64
7 Toro Rosso-Renault 44
8 Sauber-Ferrari 32
9 McLaren-Honda 20
10 Marussia-Ferrari 0
Kimi Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas disagree over whether their last lap clash in Formula 1’s Russian Grand Prix was a racing incident.
The Finns were fighting over third place on the final lap, having both just passed Sergio Perez, when Raikkonen attacked Bottas’s Williams into Turn 4 and they collided.
While Raikkonen’s Ferrari hobbled round to finish fifth, Bottas was out on the spot, and Perez came through to retake third place.
The collision is under investigation by the stewards, and Raikkonen is unsure if he should get a penalty for coming from too far back.
“I don’t know, for me it was racing,” said the 2007 world champion.
“I tried to pass and unfortunately it ended up like this, but I’m not the stewards.
“I overtook him there once before and I wasn’t too far back so I thought I would try again.
“Once I decided to try I can’t back off. I don’t know if he didn’t see me at all or didn’t expect me to go there.
“I tried to turn as much inside as I could but there was nowhere to go and we collided.”
Bottas disputed his countryman’s opinion on the clash, having said on the radio: “What the fuck did he do?”
The Williams driver added: “I don’t think it was a racing incident.
“I didn’t see anyone there and I was in front, and then suddenly someone hits me.
“I should be on the podium, but I’m here with zero points instead. That’s just disappointing.
“It doesn’t really matter for me [if Raikkonen gets a penalty] because I’m not getting those points back.
“I would guess [he will] – I could look in the mirror and see it was not my fault.”
Source: Autosport.com
Championship leader and race winner Lewis Hamilton was concerned by Nico Rosberg’s failure during the Russian Grand Prix. Autosport.com has the details.
Russian Grand Prix winner Lewis Hamilton admits reliability remains a concern for Mercedes following Nico Rosberg’s retirement from Sunday’s Formula 1 race at Sochi.
Hamilton beat Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel to victory, racing alone out front after the other Mercedes of Rosberg retired with a throttle pedal damper problem having led the early laps.
Hamilton also had to manage an unidentified rear wing issue in the closing stages of the race, which resulted in his team telling him not to use DRS.
“I don’t know what was wrong with my car, I don’t think it was DRS, but it was something happening to the rear end, that’s why my pace decreased,” he said.
“The reliability is something we have focused on a huge amount over the last year and a half and for whatever reason, we are struggling and having a few problems with it.
“Nico has been incredibly unfortunate to suffer the worst.
“We will be working as hard as we can to rectify it – and hope in the next races we don’t have a problem – but of course it is a concern for us.”
Hamilton added it was disappointing that he did not get the chance to fight with Rosberg on track.
“Nico was holding his ground and it looked like we were going to have a race,” he said.
“I was thinking ‘this is great’, but then he went a bit wide and I overtook him – maybe before or after that he started to have problems.
“It’s unfortunate for the team – it was a good opportunity to get the constructors’ championship this weekend.”
Rosberg’s throttle problem meant his car’s accelerator was sticking, leaving him with no choice but to retire.
“It’s unbelievable something like this had to happen,” said the German, whose world championship hopes were dealt a serious blow.
“At the moment I’m disappointed with today and I don’t think about the rest.
“But I never write anything off, and picking myself up is not a problem either.”
As for Force India’s Sergio Perez, who finished third. The Mexican driver described this feeling as his ‘best moment’. Autosport.com has the story.
Sergio Perez believes his podium finish for Force India in the Russian Grand Prix proves he is in the best form of his Formula 1 career.
The Mexican made an early pitstop under the safety car for Romain Grosjean’s heavy crash, then rose up the order as others stopped and he tried to nurse his soft tyres through three quarters of the Sochi F1 race.
Although Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen, and Valtteri Bottas all overtook him, Perez moved back up to third when the two Finns collided on the final lap.
“If you look at my performance, you can see I’m going through the best moment in my career,” said Perez.
“I was confident going into the race. I was not expecting a podium at all, but the race started quite well.
“When we had the second safety car, we were one of the few cars to box.
“At the restart I was stuck behind Felipe Nasr and [Felipe] Massa, so I decided together with my team to save my tyres and it worked really well.
“We have a lot of momentum with us and I hope we can maintain it through to the end of the year.”
Though his strategy ultimately paid off, Perez admitted he was in no shape to fight with the faster cars that had pitted later as they attacked him.
“It was difficult to hold them back, Valtteri and Raikkonen,” he said.
“At this stage, where my tyres were, I could not brake late because I was risking flatspotting them, so there was a certain level of risk I was able to take.
“I said ‘OK, if it’s not a podium, let’s get the points’. Then they had contact and we came back, which is great.”
FIRST-LAP ERROR SIDELINES HULKENBERG
Force India had started with both cars in the top 10 after Nico Hulkenberg and Perez qualified sixth and seventh, but the German spun on the first lap while attacking the Ferraris into Turn 2.
He was then collected by Max Verstappen and Marcus Ericsson, ending his race and the Sauber’s immediately.
“Braking for the second corner, I locked the rear wheels which ultimately then made me spin into Turn 2,” Hulkenberg explained.
“Standing in the middle of the track on lap one with the whole field behind you is not ideal.
“It was difficult for Ericsson to avoid me and we ran into each other and were stuck.”
Ericsson described the collision was “very frustrating”.
“One of those things when you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said.
“My start was really good, I was making up places down to Turn 2, focused on getting a good exit and then Nico was just there in the way.”
Kimi Raikkonen has been penalised for his last-lap Russian Grand Prix collision with Valtteri Bottas, dropping from fifth to eighth place.
The loss of six points for Ferrari allows Mercedes to officially clinch the 2015 Formula 1 constructors’ championship.
Raikkonen hit Bottas’s Williams while challenging for third place on the final lap, after both had passed Sergio Perez’s Force India as its tyres faded.
The collision sent Bottas straight into the barriers and out, while Raikkonen nursed his damaged car over the line in fifth place.
The stewards decided the move deserved a 10-second stop/go penalty, which was applied as a 30s time penalty post-race.
Raikkonen was adamant the collision was a racing accident and that a penalty would not be fair.
“I overtook him there once before and I wasn’t too far back so I thought I would try again,” he said.
“Once I decided to try I can’t back off. I don’t know if he didn’t see me at all or didn’t expect me to go there.
“I tried to turn as much inside as I could but there was nowhere to go and we collided.”
But Bottas replied: “I don’t think it was a racing incident.
“I didn’t see anyone there and I was in front, and then suddenly someone hits me.”
Raikkonen’s penalty elevates Daniil Kvyat into fifth place for Red Bull at his home grand prix.
In a further post-race penalty, McLaren driver Fernando Alonso has had 5s added to his race time for corner cutting at Turn 16, which he received a warning for during the grand prix.
That costs McLaren a point as he falls to 11th behind Max Verstappen’s Toro Rosso.
Source: Autosport.com