Hamilton takes victory as Perez scores sensational podium

Lewis Hamilton came a step closer to taking his third world championship as he took victory in Sochi, whilst team mate Nico Rosberg retired with a sticky throttle. The German led from pole position but, in an attempt to minimise the damage, he went too deep into turn 2 and lost the run out of the corner, which was the only invitation Hamilton needed to snatch the lead.

Hamilton’s commanding victory puts him 3rd on the all-time list of most Formula One victories, tied with Sebastian Vettel on 42 wins. Hamilton now only needs to outscore Vettel by nine points and Rosberg by two points to clinch the title at the next race in Austin.

Nico Hulkenberg and Marcus Ericsson were early casualties from the race, as Hulkenberg spun out of turn 2 and collected the Sauber. This brought out the safety car, which made a second appearance when Romain Grosjean lost the rear of his Lotus at turn 3 and had a massive impact with the barriers around the outside of the corner.

Sebastian Vettel quickly found himself looking at the back of Valtteri Bottas for 2nd after a close call with his team mate Kimi Raikkonen, running side by side into turn 2 before Raikkonen took to the run off, but was forced to let the German through.

Vettel went four laps longer on his first stint than the Finn and managed to put in strong lap times whilst Bottas was caught up in traffic. This put him up into 2nd.

The safety car had opened up strategy options. Some of the midfielders decided to pit early and stretch out the second stint, gambling on gaining track position and low tyre wear. Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo were the top runners to have done so, and found themselves in a great position towards the end of the race: Perez 3rd and Ricciardo 4th.

Bottas and Raikkonen were struggling to find their way through the traffic. Ricciardo held his own against the two Finns but eventually had to concede the positions before dropping out of the race with a suspected suspension issue.

On the penultimate lap Bottas lunged up the inside at turn 13 on Perez and put himself onto the podium places, and Raikkonen followed his countryman through around the outside of the following corner.

But they continued to squabble for the final place on the podium on the last lap, and Raikkonen made an ambitious move up the inside of turn 4 which resulted in contact. Bottas was left in the barriers and Raikkonen limped home with suspension damage in 5th place. This, of course, handed the place back to Perez to take his fifth career podium, and his first since Bahrain last year.

Felipe Massa went for an alternate strategy, starting on the soft tyres and going for the supersofts for the final stint. This meant the Brazilian was very quick at the end of the race. This, combined with the Bottas/Raikkonen incident, helped him move up from 15th on the grid to 4th.

Daniil Kvyat finished 6th in front of his home crowd ahead of Felipe Nasr and Pastor Maldonado. McLaren finished with both cars in the points, with Button leading Alonso over the line. They struggled to match the straight line speed of their competitors, as we have become used to seeing this year, but pitting under the second safety car put them in a strong position.

Max Verstappen was 11th after getting caught up in the Hulkenberg/Ericsson incident at the start of the race. He spun whilst taking avoiding action and got a puncture, which dropped him to the back of the grid. It was a recovery drive from then on. His team mate Carlos Sainz was racing despite hitting the barriers in a 46G crash during FP3. The Spaniard went to the medical centre but was quickly given the green light to race. He was one of those who pitted under the second safety car, and found himself in a great 7th place, but a front-left brake failure forced him to retire.

At the rear of the field, Roberto Merhi out-performed team mate Will Stevens on his return to Manor, having stepped aside for Alexander Rossi in Singapore and Japan. Merhi will race once more at the finale in Abu Dhabi whilst Rossi finishes his GP2 campaign.

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