Hamilton wins at Sochi as Mercedes clinch Constructors' title

F1 Grand Prix, GP Russia, Sochi International Street Circuit

Lewis Hamilton has won the first ever Russian Grand Prix, dominating the entire race after Nico Rosberg made a mistake on lap one and had to fight his way back through the field to still finish second, ahead of Bottas. The result secures Mercedes of the win in the Constructors' Championship.

Sergio Perez is the best placed man to start on the medium. Sutil is the next, along with Massa, Hulkenberg, Chilton, Kobayashi and Maldonado.

As the lights went out, Hamilton took the lead, but with such a long run to turn 1, Rosberg got into the slipstream of his team mate and got the advantage by the first sharp right hander which is turn 2. There however, Rosberg badly locked his front wheels under braking. He went wide through the turn but remained first before being asked to hand the position back to Hamilton due to gaining an unfair advantage.

Rosberg pitted at the end of that lap after suffering vibrations with his flat spotted tyres. To make things worse, Massa pitted as well, and as Williams managed to complete their stop slightly quicker, Rosberg had to wait in his slot until Massa got past.

After lap 5, this meant Hamilton easily led the race, 2.5s ahead of Bottas. Button was third but saw Alonso closely behind. The Spaniard exploited Kvyat's troubled start to the maximum to move up from 7th to 4th place. Magnussen is 5th, ahead of Vettel, Ricciardo, Vergne, Raikkonen and Kvyat.

Vergne notably also made a strong start, moving up to 5th before losing out to Magnussen and the Red Bull duo, despite fierce defence.

Perez is 11th, ahead of Gutierrez, Hulkenberg, Grosjean, Ericsson, Rosberg, Sutil, Massa, Maldonado, Kobayashi and Chilton.

On lap 11, Chilton dives into the pits to retire from the race, while one lap later Ricciardo pits from 7th to change to the medium tyre. He rejoined the track in 17th, behind Ericsson.

Without pitstops, positions are more or less invariable, except for Rosberg and Massa who are steadily working their way up. By lap 18, Rosberg is 11th with Massa following the German's every more, 2 seconds further down the road in 12th.

On lap 21, Kvyat pits. Button pits on lap 23 while Hamilton reported he is still very happy with his current set of option tyres. Rosberg on the medium compound meanwhile said he was getting some degradation. At the same time though, the latter opened the gap to Massa as the Williams drivers got stuck behind Perez whereas Rosberg had no trouble getting past him.

On lap 26, Alonso pitted but was stuck longer in the pits than planned due to a problem with the front jack. The stop was completed in 7.4 seconds with the Ferrari driver rejoining the track in 9th place, 2 seconds behind Massa. Bottas and Magnussen pitted one lap later while Hamilton changed tyres another lap later. Massa pitted at the end of the lap as well, taking on another set of soft tyres.

On lap 29 Sutil spins off the track following a very brave move to pass Grosjean on the outside of turn 2. He was effectively ahead until Grosjean softly bumped wheels with the Sauber. Sutil though kept his car going and was able to rejoin the race 5s down on Grosjean. The latter was later penalised with a 5s stop and go.

At the front meanwhile, Vettel kept on going on his initial set of soft tyres, holding up Bottas and Rosberg until the end of lap 30. By that time though, Hamilton got a lead of 20 seconds over second place. 4 corners later Rosberg seizes second place with a very opportunistic move through turn 2. Bottas wisely avoided contact by running wide, knowing that Rosberg would likely suffer tyre degradation later on in the race.

Following a string of fastest laps from Rosberg up to an advantage of 5.5 seconds over Bottas, the latter ups his pace to start a recovery, hoping for Rosberg's tyres to degrade, even though there is no immediate sign of that.

At the same time, Alonso is having a hard time defending his sixth place to Ricciardo. Vettel is antoher 6 seconds behind with Raikkonen in 9th 13s more. Perez, running in 10th and just ahead of Massa is the final points taker with 10 laps to go, but his need to save fuel may put him at a risk of being overtaken.

Nothing really changed in the final laps, except for a battle for fastest lap between Rosberg and Bottas, with the latter eventually taking that one by recording a 1:40.896 on the final lap.