Hamilton keeps surging with 4th win in a row; Rosberg recovers from 1st lap mistake to take remarkable 2nd; Bottas grabs another podium with 3rd

All pics sourced from the excellent GrandPrix247.com.

The inaugural Russian Grand Prix from the brand new Sochi circuit was essentially decided on the first corner of Lap 1 when Nico Rosberg pulled ahead of his pole-sitting Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton but lost concentration while carrying too much speed and locked up massively on the slick new asphalt. This badly flat-spotted the German contender’s tires and he was forced to pit far earlier than planned for a new set of rubber. Rosberg’s improbable mission from then on was to advance through the field while preserving his rubber until the end, as the track caused minimal degradation to the field’s tires and made one-stop strategy the only feasible competitive option. But he was able to rescue his race in impressive fashion to finish 2nd and claw back important points in the Drivers’ Championship that he appeared to throw away with his sloppy first lap mistake, staying within striking distance of Hamilton with only three Grand Prix remaining this year. Rosberg’s impressive recovery also allowed Mercedes to secure the 2014 Constructors’ Championship, their first and a well-deserved reward for an absolutely dominant season during which their chassis has been far and away the best of them all.

In the end Hamilton increased his advantage over his Mercedes teammate to 17 points and thanks to Rosberg’s uncharacteristic error, the Englishman was able to swan away easily for the fist-ever Formula 1 victory in Russia. The resurgent ace in the always-dominant 2014 Silver Arrow has now won 4 races in a row to take command of the Championship and was never seriously threatened by the rest of the field, driving flawlessly from Lap 1 to Lap 53. Clearly it appears that the mental advantage, which had seemed to be Rosberg’s for half the season, has swung back to Hamilton and it will take something special to stop him from claiming his second Championship and first since 2008.

As he has so often this year and seeming to alternate with Daniel Ricciardo for the honor, Williams’ young Finnish phenom Valtteri Bottas showed that he was the best of the rest in Sochi, coming home less than 4 seconds behind Rosberg. With the Red Bulls lacking straight line speed and teammate Felipe Massa suffering through a nightmare weekend of technical issues, it was left to Bottas to pose this week’s token challenge to Mercedes and claim the last step on the podium. The 25-year-old now sits 4th in the Drivers’ Championship, just ahead of Sebastian Vettel and behind the equally impressive Ricciardo by 54 points. His teammate Massa finished out of the points in 11th and the two Red Bulls languished in P7 (Ricciardo) and P8 (Vettel), punished by the slick Sochi track’s need for speed, which their Renault power plants were unable to provide.

Thriving where Red Bull struggled, McLaren had its best day in a long while with Jenson Button coming home 4th and Kevin Magnussen taking 5th. It’s no coincidence that the top 5 finishers were all running Mercedes power and it makes perfect sense that struggling Team Lotus announced over the weekend that they would be switching to it next year. Ferrari had another mediocre race although it was an improvement from last week’s awful results in Japan: Fernando Alonso settled for 6th behind Magnussen and Kimi Raikkonen took 9th behind Vettel. Rounding out the Top 10 was another Mercedes-powered car, the Force India of Sergio Perez, who grabbed the last point for the little team that could, which sits securely in 6th in the lucrative Constructors’ standings, well ahead of Toro Rosso, Lotus, Marussia, Sauber and Caterham.

Speaking of Toro Rosso, that team had a very poor Grand Prix after such a good Qualifying effort on Saturday, when Russian Daniil Kvyat secured 5th on the grid and Jean-Eric Vergne grabbed 9th. But come race day, the Toro Rossos both struggled with grip over the long haul and then were forced into fuel conservation mode to complete the race. They dropped steadily backwards to finish out of the points with Kvyat a very disappointing 14th and Vergne 13th. Team Lotus’s awful season continued unabated with Romain Grosjean coming home P17 and Pastor Maldonado 18th just ahead of troubled Caterham’s Marcus Ericsson. Team Sauber was a little better but still failed to score their first point of the season with Estaban Gutierrez P15 and veteran Adrian Sutil P16. Finally, after only racing one car in honor of their injured driver Jules Bianchi, team Marussia had to retire Max Chilton’s on Lap 4, perhaps in order to preserve the engine or to prevent a more serious failure on track. It seems probable that Marussia will go back to running their full 2-car team 3 weeks time in Austin with American Alexander Rossi likely to get his first F1 start in place of the gravely injured Frenchman.

Top 10 finishers for the Russian Grand Prix here:

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race weekend begins on Halloween in Texas at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin for the United States Grand Prix. The race is on November 2nd and it should be a good one. Even if it seems unlikely now, hopefully there will even be some good news to share about Jules Bianchi by then. We’ll think a good thought in the meantime and look forward to seeing you then.