Russian GP: Bottas took self-confident victory!

Several races have come up with pre-race drama this season, and that was up for the championship leader Hamilton at Sochi. On their way to the grid, the drivers tend to take practice starts to prepare themselves for the lights out. This time, however, Hamilton took a practice start out of the designated area, and he did it twice. The Briton's action was taken into investigation by the stewards.

The lights went out for the seventh time at Sochi Autodrom. Hamilton took a convincing start from pole, but teammate Bottas attacked like a hyena. The Finn first moved past Verstappen and then dived into the slipstream behind Hamilton. Going into Turn 1, half of his W11 was already ahead of the Briton, but braking a bit too late made Valtteri end up on the sausage kerb, and Hamilton managed, just barely, to stay ahead of his teammate. One of the best starts was taken by Renault's Ocon, who had jumped three positions and was now fourth in the race, followed by his teammate Ricciardo. 

Sochi is well-known for first-lap safety car episodes, and this year proved no exception to the rule. In Turn 1 there was contact between Charles and Racing Point's Stroll. The Monegasque hit the rear of Stroll's "pink Mercedes", which threw the Canadian into the barriers and out of the race. Charles was able to continue with no significant damage to his SF1000. There was also another bizarre event in Turn 1. McLaren's Sainz failed to brake in time for Turn 1, and he ended up on the run-off area. That wouldn't have been a problem, had the Spaniard rejoined the track following the instructions, which meant getting around the orange blocks. However, Sainz was driving way too fast, and he ended up hitting the edge of the wall and almost every block on his way back to the track! In addition to his own race, Sainz ruined his teammate's race as well, as Norris inevitably hit the debris on the track. Safety car was deployed.

Safety car came in on lap 5, and the race was back on. Hamilton's preparation for the restart was perfect, and his lead wasn't jeopardised. However, a couple of laps later the stewards gave their verdict; Hamilton was handed two 5-second time penalties, one for each practice start out of the designated area.

It was inevitable, that the Briton was going to run out of tyres before his closest rivals Bottas and Verstappen, who had started to the race on the yellow-walled medium compound. Hamilton banged the fastest lap time, and then pitted on lap 16. He suffered his penalty first, 10 long seconds, before switching to the hard Pirellis. The Briton rejoined the track in P11, right ahead of Kimi, who had started to the race on the hard rubber and was driving a long first stint. 

Bottas was absolutely flying in the lead. He was banging superb lap times one after another, and his margin to teammate Hamilton had increased into almost 40 seconds. The Finn was perfectly safe in terms of his upcoming pit stop, as the delta time at Sochi was about 25 seconds. Verstappen pitted on lap 25, switching to the hardest compound. The Dutchman rejoined the track in P4. Home hero Kvyat, who had also started to the race on the hard rubber, hadn't pitted yet, and the Russian was third in the race. Bottas pitted from the lead on the sequential lap, opting for a similar tyre choice. The storming Finn rejoined the track in the lead. 

Kimi was driving a consistent race in P10, until he pitted on lap 36. Unfortunately the Iceman's pit stop didn't go as planned, as the mechanics had problems with attaching his front-left tyre. A 6-second delay was costly for Kimi, and the Iceman dropped down to P16. Sebastian, too was driving a modest race at the back of the pack. On lap 40 he attacked Haas' Grosjean, who was adamant to hold on to his position. There was even contact between the two, luckily tyres only. Sebastian made his way past the Frenchman, who ended up going wide, hitting the colourful blocks. Virtual safety car was brought out, but for a short moment only, as the Russian marshals had quickly replaced the damaged blocks with new ones.

Bottas was controlling the race perfectly. Runner-up Verstappen was 10 seconds down on the Finn already. Hamilton in third was almost 10 seconds off the Dutchman, so the pecking order was very straightforward. The most thrilling battle seemed to be going on for P9 between Norris, Albon and Gasly. Albon in his RB16 made a small mistake, and Gasly used his opportunity right away, snatching P10. Norris seemed to be in trouble with his dying hard tyres, and both Albon and Gasly passed the struggling Briton. Norris had no choice but to pit for the second time, which dropped the young McLaren pilot out of points. 

It was an awkward moment to see race leader Bottas behind Sebastian, lapping the struggling quadruple world champion, who was shown blue flags. It hurt my heart to see Sebastian out of the points and struggling with a badly-behaving car.

On the second last lap Bottas set the fastest lap time, which brought the Finn the extra point, too. The day was perfect for Valtteri, who deserved his second win of the season undoubtedly. Verstappen managed to split the Silver Arrows, which was the maximum result for the Red Bull ace. Hamilton completed the podium in spite of his penalty, but equalling Schumacher's record of most wins is still to await. Perez finished fourth for Racing Point, which underlined the strong potential of the Mexican. The Renault duo of Ricciardo and Ocon was split by Charles, who managed to extract the maximum out of the performance-lacking Ferrari. Home hero Kvyat finished impressive 8th, followed by Gasly in the sister AlphaTauri and Albon in his RB16. To my deep disappointment, Sebastian finished 13th and Kimi 14th. 

In spite of the glorious win at Sochi, Bottas is still 44 points down on his teammate in the championship standings. However, the Finn managed to increase his lead to Verstappen into 33 points. The battle for P4 is absolutely hair-raising, as Norris has 65 points to Albon's 64 and Ricciardo's 63. In the constructors' standings the top two teams are very obvious; Mercedes are the leading team, and Red Bull are their closest contender. But who will be "the best of the rest" at the end of the season? Currently McLaren are third with 106 points. Racing Point in fourth are only two points down on McLaren, and Renault in fifth are five points down on "the pink Mercedes". Ferrari are currently in modest P6 with 74 points.

In a fortnight the F1 circus moves to Nurburgring Germany, which hasn't hosted an F1 race for seven years. The autumn weather in Germany may throw up some interesting challenges for the teams.