Already before today´s qualifying Ferrari had announced that Sebastian was going to get a five-place grid penalty for the Russian GP due to an unscheduled gearbox change. Sebastian had had an electrical failure in his Margherita in FP2, which made me quite worried about Ferrari´s reliability once again this weekend.
Q1 saw everyone out on the red-marked super soft tyres. One thing was clear right from the beginning: the Silver Arrows were flying at Sochi Autodrome! After the first attempts Hamilton was 0,9s up on Kimi and a whole 1,3s up on Sebastian! However, on his second run Sebastian managed to improve his lap time, which made him "only" half a second off Hamilton´s pace. Williams had made some upgrades on their car for the weekend and this track clearly suited them better than the first three venues. Bottas and Massa were 5th and 6th and the Williams teammates were separated by only 7 thousandths of a second. Out of Q2 were the Renault teammates Magnussen and Palmer, Sauber duo Nasr and Ericsson and the Manors of Wehrlein and Haryanto.
Rosberg absolutely owned Q2. The German´s pace was utterly dominant; he was half a second up on his teammate Hamilton and 1,3s up on Sebastian. The pecking order was clear: Mercedes was the fastest team, second fastest was Ferrari and third was Williams. In terms of the super soft tyres there was an interesting detail, which was charasteristic of this track: instead of only one flying lap it was possible to run two flying laps on the same set of super soft tyres. Red Bull´s Kvyat made it among the top ten in the dying seconds of Q2, which meant that Toro Rosso´s Sainz was knocked out of the final session. Both McLarens, both Haas drivers and Force India´s Hulkenberg were also eliminated from Q3. However, I was very happy to see Verstappen make it among the top ten.
Things didn´t go to plan for luckless Hamilton; a power unit failure -similar to that in China- ruled the Briton out of Q3! As Hamilton´s latest ERS drama unfolded and precluded him from running, Rosberg owned Q3, too. Hamilton also had to visit the stewards to explain why he didn´t rejoin the track in the manner required by the race director after running slightly wide at Turn 2 during Q1. Rosberg took provisional pole by 8 tenths of a second over Sebastian, who was his closest rival. Rosberg´s next try saw him faster in the first two sectors before the lap was ruined by an off in Turn 13. However, his job was long done. Sebastian´s gap to Rosberg was finally massive 7 tenths of a second. Bottas surprised by qualifying 3rd in his FW38. Once again Kimi made a mistake in the last corner and had to settle for P4. However, due to the penalty Sebastian will drop to seventh, which means Bottas will make Williams´ first front-row start since Germany two years ago. Kimi will start 3rd, Massa 4th, Ricciardo 5th, Perez 6th, Kvyat 8th and Verstappen 9th. Hamilton´s provisional grid position is 10th but there might be some penalties coming, if the Briton´s car needs an engine change.
Rosberg seems to have it too easy at the moment. I definitely hope that Kimi and Sebastian will take rocket starts tomorrow so that the red warriors take the battle to Rosberg. Williams´ pace has seemed stronger on one lap than on longer runs so I´m expecting the Ferrari duo to make their way past Bottas and Massa in the race. You can never underestimate Lewis Hamilton, now matter how far back on the grid he starts. Tomorrow´s race is predicted to be a one-stop race so the tyres won´t play too a significant role. There´s one thing I hope more than anything else: that there will be no reliability worries for Ferrari this time!
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