Hamilton surges to victory at Sochi while Rosberg DNFs — Mercedes secure Championship; Vettel P2 for Ferrari; Perez grabs miracle podium after Raikonnen takes out Bottas on final lap

Pictures via GrandPrix247.com

In an action-packed Russian Grand Prix where unpredictability seemed the only sure thing, the one near-certainty of 2015 managed to come through yet again: a Lewis Hamilton win for the Mercedes factory team. After being out-qualified for the pole by his teammate and archival Nico Rosberg, everything broke the Englishman’s way on race day just as it has in 9 out of the 15 contests so far. Rosberg’s promising start proved illusory when it was doomed by terminal throttle problems that forced him to drop out on Lap 8. With only four more races remaining in the season, Rosberg, who had performed flawlessly all weekend, actually saw himself dropped to third in the Drivers’ points by Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel by day’s end. Hamilton, who proved effortlessly untouchable in the race and won by nearly 6 seconds, now leads Vettel by a commanding 66 points and Rosberg by 73. And after this dominant performance in Russia, a race he has now won for the first two years of its existence, Hamilton also seems assured of winning his second consecutive championship, further burnishing his status as one the all-time greats of the sport.

Vettel started from fourth on the grid but inherited third when Rosberg dropped out. He was then able to jump the Williams of Valtteri Bottas for P2 after a sterling Ferrari pit stop on Lap 30. The wily German never looked back and while he didn’t have anything for Hamilton, the former 4-time World Champ secured another solid 2nd place finish in his impressive debut year with the Scuderia. Things did not go as well for Vettel’s Ferrari teammate, Kimi Raikonnen. While dicing with Bottas for the last podium position and with both cars having overtaken the overachieving Force India of Sergio Perez on the final lap, Raikonnen went for an inside move for the decisive pass. But instead he collided with the rear of the Williams when Bottas either didn’t see his fellow Finn or closed the door on him. That knocked Bottas off the track and out of the race and it also damaged Raikkonen’s Ferrari, although not fatally. Perez was the lucky beneficiary of the all-Finnish kerfuffle, instantly reclaiming his lost positions to take 3rd at the checkers for a jubilant Force India. While Raikonnen was able to limp his car home for a P5 finish, the stewards determined him to be at fault for the collision after the race and docked the veteran 30 seconds, pushing him back to P8. That in turn mathematically eliminated Ferrari, the only team remaining with a chance to catch Mercedes, from the Constructors’ Championship. The factory Mercedes team has now won two consecutive titles to start this 6-cylinder Turbo era in dominant fashion.

Another beneficiary of the last lap chaos was Bottas’ teammate, Felipe Massa, Massa fought his way towards the front after starting from way back in 15th on the grid with a savvy veteran drive, keeping himself in prime position to capitalize as cars fell out during the race. When Bottas and Raikkonen clashed, Massa passed them both and finished right behind Perez in P4, a race redeeming result on a topsy-turvy day for Williams. Russian hero Daniil Kvyat also drove a very good race for Red Bull in front of his home crowd and finished P6 (promoted to P5). However his teammate Daniel Ricicardo, who was battling for a podium late in the race and was certainly on pace to grab good points, was forced to retire on Lap 49 of the 53 lap contest with some sort of suspension damage. Felipe Nasr was excellent for Sauber and found himself promoted to P6, while Lotus’ Pastor Maldonado had a rare incident-free race and got bumped up to P7 with Kimi’s penalty. His Lotus teammate Romain Grosjean was not as fortunate and had a scary spinning crash on Lap 12 when he lost the back end at a high rate of speed. The Frenchman was thankfully able to exit his destroyed chassis under his own power and appeared uninjured.

Rounding out the Top 10, McLaren got a rare bit of good news when Jenson Button was able to bag 2 points by coming home a fortuitous P9. Unfortunately, teammate Fernando Alonso received a 5-second time penalty for exceeding track limits that pushed the Spaniard out of the points, denying the team a rare double scoring day, but it still must have felt like a small victory for McLaren during this disastrous 2015 campaign. Toro Rosso rookie Max Verstappen was able to overcome some tire damage after a first lap contretemps that involved a gaggle of cars to take the last points paying position in P10. Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg caused that incident when he spun, continuing the German Le Mans winner’s rough run in recent races. He also collected and disabled the Sauber of Marcus Ericsson. And after crashing heavily on Saturday in pre-Qualifying practice and being subsequently hospitalized, Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz, Jr. and his team made a valiant effort to start the race and was running well when he suffered brake failure on Lap 47. The 21-year-old Spanish rookie nevertheless earned a ton of respect with his gritty effort to get back in the car so quickly after such a heavy shunt.

Top 10 finishers from Sochi with Raikonnen’s penalty factored in:

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next Grand Prix is in two weeks from the spectacular Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. While the Constructors’ Championship is a done deal for Mercedes, Hamilton still has some work to do to secure the Drivers’ title and will certainly be hunting another victory at COTA. And as we saw this weekend at Sochi, anything can happen any given race weekend so best to tune in and see how it all unfolds. With only four more races until the end of the season and the long winter break each GP should be something to savor. Hope to see you then!