Hamilton wins incident filled Russian GP

F1 Grand Prix, GP Russia, Sochi International Street Circuit

Lewis Hamilton has dominated the Russian Grand Prix Sochi, inheriting the lead from his team mate as he retired from the race on lap 7. Sebastian Vettel finished second for Ferrari while Sergio Perez completed the podium for Sahara Force India.

The weather is great for the Russian Grand Prix, preventing some of the tyre warm up issues that some drivers were experiencing towards the end of qualifying. It triggered Rosberg to do a very slow warm-up lap, clearly triggering some annoyance from Vettel who accellerated ahead of Hamilton before taking his grid position.

As the lights went out, Rosberg kept his lead, smartly taking the inside line at turn 3 to protect his position from a charing Lewis Hamilton. Raikkonen though managed to make some progress in the opening stages, moving up into third place just before a safety car got deployed due to an accident in the middle of the field.

It was at turn 3 where Hulkenberg's car got loose on accelleration, spinning as a consequence and creating a left rear puncture for Verstappen. Marcus Ericsson was even worse off as his race, just like Hulkenberg's ended prematurely as he clinched into the Force India.

Grosjean also ended up in the pits but managed to return to the track, down into 17th place, ahead only of Verstappen.

On lap 4, the race was on (again), with Bottas immediately exploiting his Mercedes power to get back into third by passing Raikkonen. Vettel followed in 5th, ahead of Perez, Kvyat, Ricciardo, Nasr, Button, Massa, Maldonado, Alonso and Sainz. Grosjean already got past both Manors in the first three corners to move up into 15 while Verstappen was still 18th, 6 seconds down on Stevens in 17th place.

On lap 7, Rosberg goes wide through the exit of turn 3, lifting off to make the corner and thereby handing the lead to Hamilton. The situation worsened when Bottas managed to get past 4 corners later as well, and further on in the lap, the engine switched off completely. Nico still managed to roll back into the pits, but once there, the team had no immediate solution, forcing the German to retire from the race. It emerged later that Rosberg's throttle pedal broke during the safety car period, not allowing him to completely get off the throttle again.

Meanwhile, Button moved up into 10th but started to struggle keeping cars behind due to his lack of top speed. Maldonado easily rolled past him soon after, with Sainz, having started from the back of the grid, got ahead as well on lap 11, thanks to a very straightforward pass at the end of the main straight.

Another lap later, Grosjean has a massive crash halfway through turn 3, almost completely writing off his Lotus E23. The Frenchman got out of his car without harm while the medical car arrived on scene. The safety car meanwhile was standing still at turn 1 to wait for Hamilton, who arrived without opting to take an early pitstop.

Perez, Ricciardo, Sainz and Button meanwhile did pit immediately, even though it's early days for a single stop strategy. On the second pass, Alonso also pitted to change from soft to super soft, with Stevens and Merhi also stopping.

Replays showed how Grosjean was around half a second behind Button, and slightly lost the rear of the car. He then corrected, but once the rear wheels recovered grip, he basically veered off across the track, into the TecPro barriers on the outside of the corner.

Running behind the safety car, while marshalls were repairing the barriers, only the top 8 have not stopped yet. All top 4 drivers at that point were on super softs, followed by Kvyat and Nasr on super softs not used in qualifying and ahead of a bunch of soft runners, led by Felipe Massa. Maldonado was 8th, ahead of Perez, Ricciardo, Verstappen, Sainz, Button, Alonso, Merhi and finally Stevens.

On lap 17, the safety car left the track, with Hamilton and Bottas powering off hard, giving neither Ferrari a chance to get close. They fought it out among themselves though, with Raikkonen seeing Vettel dive into the inside at turn 3. Raikkonen didn't give up, but failed to make the corner and eventually had to give up the position half a lap later.

At the same time, Ricciardo got involved into a fight for 10th with Sainz, eventually taking the upper hand after fierce defence by the Spanish Toro Rosso driver.

Among the four front runners, Bottas was the first to pits, having seen Vettel close in. The latter at that time was still very content on his super softs and continued for three more laps while Bottas was trying to get past Sainz in the middle of the pack. Vettel as such easily emerged ahead of the Finn, with Raikkonen slotting in just behind the Williams drivers after he stopped another lap later.

Hamilton pitted the next lap and continued to lead the race, enjoying an advantage of 11 seconds over Felipe Nasr who continued on the super softs. Vettel followed 2 seconds further, with Perez in 4th. Ricciardo was 5th, closely followed by Bottas and Raikkonen.

On lap 35, Nasr finally pited and rejoined the track just when Massa was overtaking Alonso.

10 laps from the end, Hamilton had a comfortable 11s in hand over Vettel. Perez trailed another 13s further, with Ricciardo, Bottas and Raikkonen all within striking distance. Sainz was 7th while Massa had just moved up into 8th after passing Kvyat.

Two laps later, Bottas pushed ahead of passed Ricciardo to start a chase on Perez who by that time was struggling with his front tyres.

On lap 47, Sainz's front left brake failed, first triggering a spin but a few corners later also sending him rearwards into the barriers to break his front wing. He returned to the track nonetheless, but retired from the race a few corners further down the road. A pity for him as he had progressed well from 20th to 7th position.

Bottas meanwhile caught up with Perez while Raikkonen made his way past Ricciardo. The latter though also retired one lap later, parking his car in one of the run-offs. By lap 52, Raikkonen has also caught up with Perez and Bottas, having recorded the fastest lap of the race.

On the penultimate lap, Bottas finally made it past Perez, with Raikkonen following through. The latter later attempted a pass on Bottas as well, but the two collided, leaving Bottas in the barriers and Raikkonen limping back to the pits with the front of the floor scraping over the asphalt.

Massa still made it past Raikkonen to take 4th, with Raikkonen slow over the finish line in 5th place. An investigation was promptly started to decide who was to blame for that late-race clash.

The incident also meant both McLarens took points, with Button 9th and Alonso 10th, a first double points scoring finish for the McLaren Honda team this year.