Nico Rosberg has taken his seventh win in a row at the Russian GP for Mercedes. Team-mate, Lewis Hamilton climbed up the order to finish second, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari in third.
As the lights went out at the Sochi Autodrom, Nico Rosberg dived into the first turn from pole in the lead and stayed there, without any troubles, all the way to the chequered flag. Rosberg now joins Michael Schumacher, Alberto Ascari and Sebastian Vettel in being the fourth driver in the history of the sport to win sever races in a row.
The main battle during the race was between Valterri Bottas of Williams, Raikkonen and Hamilton who had climbed up the order on the first lap after starting from tenth place. Raikkonen muscled his way into second, ahead of Bottas into the first corner. But due to the chaos behind him, the safety car was summoned.
In the melee, Ferrari driver, Sebastian Vettel was subjected to being hit from behind, twice by the Redbull of Daniil Kvyat. Vettel suffered a puncture of the first hit, and then on the second, met with a shunt with he barriers leaving him to retire from the race. Kvyat was awarded with a 10 second stop and go penalty by the stewards for causing a collision.
Also in the commotion, Nico Hulkenberg took on damage to his Force India, leaving him to head back to the pits early, along with the Manor driver, Rio Haryanto.
On the restart, Bottas made the same move the the Iceman to reclaim second place. Raikkonen then tried to fight back, but clamed he suffered understeer into turn four, and a prowling Hamilton took the advantage to over take the Finn, and into third place.
Williams pitted Bottas with a blistering time of 2.7 seconds. This put the Willaims driver ahead of Hamilton who had pitted a lap before. Hamilton then overtook Bottas who was struggling to get past the McLaren of Fernando Alonso. Meanwhile, Ferrari called Raikkonen to box, the idea was to try and undercut Bottas. If possible, Hamilton as well.
Hamilton managed to get in front of Raikkonen, but Bottas took a while to get past Alonso, which cost him the place to Raikkonen. Raikkonen came out ahead of the Williams and managed to remain in position to the finish.
Hamilton, who was now charging on to Rosberg for the win, was informed of a ‘Water Pressure Issue” over the radio which led him to ease off and settle to finish second. Raikkonen with his third place claimed his personal 82nd podium finish while also claiming Ferrari’s 700th finish on the podium.
Valterri Bottas finished fourth ahead of his team-mate, Felippe Massa in fifth. Fernando Alonso finished sixth for McLaren, Kevin Magnussen in seventh for Renault, Romain Grosjean finished eighth, Segio Perez - ninth for Force India and Jenson Button claiming the final championship point in tenth.
2016 F1 RUSSIAN GRAND PRIX (01/05/2016)
Sochi Autodrom – 5.848km, 19 turns ( 52 laps)
- Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) 1:32:41.997
- Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) +25.022s
- Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) +31.998s
- Valterri Bottas (Williams – Mercedes) +50.217s
- Felipe Massa (Williams – Mercedes) +74.427s
- Fernando Alonso (McLaren – Honda) +1 lap
- Kevin Magnussen (Renault) +1 lap
- Romain Grosjean (Hass – Ferarri) +1 lap
- Sergio Perez (Force India – Mercedes) +1 lap
- Jenson Button (McLaren – Honda) +1 lap
- Daniel Ricciardo (Redbull – Tag Heuer) +1 lap
- Carlos Sainz (Torro Rosso – Ferrari) +1 lap
- Jolyon Palmer (Renault) +1 lap
- Marcus Ericsson (Sauber – Ferrari) +1 lap
- Daniil Kvyat (Redbull – Tag Heuer) +1 lap
- Felipe Nasr (Sauber – Ferrari) +1 lap
- Esteban Gutierez (Hass – Ferarri) +1 lap
- Pascal Wehrlein (Manor – Mercedes) +2 laps
- Max Verstappen (Torro Rosso – Ferrari) DNF
- Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) DNF
- Nico Hulkenberg (Force India – Mercedes) DNF
- Rio Haryanto (Manor – Mercedes) DNF
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