Grand Prix 2017 Russia Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

As the Formula One circus shakes the Bahraini sand from it's shoes it heads to Russia for the 6th running of the Russian Grand Prix. Held for the last 3 years on the streets of Sochi the circuit wends it's way around the 5.9Km long Sochi Autodrom which was built as part of the 2014 Winter Olympic Park.

The last 3 Grand Prix around this circuit have all been won by a Mercedes driver with Lewis Hamilton scoring two wins with Nico Rosberg climbing the podium as victor last year.

However, it appears that the stranglehold Mercedes have had on the Championship over the last few seasons may be being loosened in the guise of Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari with the German taking two wins this season. Some could argue that for a duff strategy call and a penalty in Bahrain that Hamilton could be leading, but, in a sport where the margins are so fine on such events are championships won and lost. Vettel will be hoping for a better race than last year where he was unceremoniously punted off the track at turn 2.

Behind Hamilton and Vettel we have the Finns of Bottas and Raikkonen, Bottas may be disappointed that he couldn't convert his maiden pole position in Bahrain into his first win and if recent reports are to be believed team orders may come into play in the future races. Kimi was just disappointed that they'd run out of Tutti-Frutti ice cream.

Behind the German and Italian national teams we have the Fizzy Pop boys of Red Bull, Verstappen had a cracking drive in China but his adventures in the desert were cut short by brake failure, Will we see a blistering drive from the young Dutchman to make up for this disappointment?

Behind the top 3 teams there's a ding dong of a midfield battle with Williams, Force India, Torro Rosso and Haas all battling it out for points.

Rumour has it that Fernando Alonso will be driving a Communist era Trabant around the Russian track as "it'll be faster than this **^%$3**%%$~* Honda"

The tyres for Sochi are the Ultra soft, supersoft and soft compounds and judging by how the new formulation of rubber has been hanging on so far this season we may well a one stop race for the front runners with other teams taking a gamble on more stops and fresher rubber towards the end of the race.

Let battle commence!

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Toto Wolff and Lewis Hamilton have been telling the media for the last two years that they really want the Ferrari's to catch them up and compete with them. Due to this I was a bit surprised at the really long faces after today. ;)

They quickly stopped talking about Red Bull when it became clear that it would be Ricciardo in 5th and Verstappen out-qualified by a Williams.

Shhh stop talking about that! That's not the story the public wants to hear and the press wants to tell. Ricciardo is obviously being out done by his young superstar team mate so they have lots of column inches to write about him leaving 'under a cloud' for silly season. Whilst your at it Don't mention Bottas out qualifying Lewis for 2ND race running. It's already been decided he'll be destroyed by Hamilton this year and will go back to Williams next year. Or that Massa is on brilliant form this year - he's old and past it and Stroll not beating a man with over a decades more F1 experience than him shows he's just a rich kid with no talent.
 
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Toto Wolff and Lewis Hamilton have been telling the media for the last two years that they really want the Ferrari's to catch them up and compete with them. Due to this I was a bit surprised at the really long faces after today. ;)



Shhh stop talking about that! That's not the story the public wants to hear and the press wants to tell. Ricciardo is obviously being out done by his young superstar team mate so they have lots of column inches to write about him leaving 'under a cloud' for silly season. Whilst your at it Don't mention Bottas out qualifying Lewis for 2ND race running. It's already been decided he'll be destroyed by Hamilton this year and will go back to Williams next year. Or that Massa is on brilliant form this year - he's old and past it and Stroll not beating a man with over a decades more F1 experience than him shows he's just a rich kid with no talent.

I love it.
 
olegg and teabagyokel the interesting bits are that Bottas' fastest lap was in Q2 and:

"Team boss Toto Wolff pointed out that had Bottas got all his best sectors in one lap, he would have been on pole. But he didn’t...."

Just shows that Mercedes are still on top.:whistle:
 
Really happy for VB but that was one of the worst races I have ever seen in 30 years of F1.

Zero overtakes?
Please can we purge the street tracks and fix the cars for next year.
 
The Artist..... Alonso said he won't make a decision until the summer so I guess the mid season break he will have decided if he wants to stay or go. Well it is all heading one way and Renault are the only team attractive enough for him seeing Mercedes probably now want to extend Bottas' stay

The Renault so far is faster than Force Indias over 1 lap but appears to fall behind in race pace so is it down to Hulkenberg or the characteristics of the Renault car being very hard on its tyres?
 
Speshal
I think Bottas actually stole the race from Ferrari .. I was expecting Vettel to run away from the start but Bottas got track position and beat the Ferraris. This was a race Mercedes should not have won
 
I watched it on record, kept my interest to the end so not bad at all even if there weren't many overtakes.
 
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