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This afternoon we saw Lewis Hamilton achieving his seventh Pole Position of this season during qualifying at the inaugural Russian Grand Prix in Sochi.
During qualifying, we saw Felipe Massa in his Williams suffering with fuel pressure problems. This left him unable to get a competitive lap time to get out of Q1 and he finished the session in seventeenth place after a promising start in FP3 today. We also saw the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel struggle during the session with extracting pace and performance from the car and did not clear Q2.
But in a close battle with his team mate Nico Rosberg, Hamilton produced a lap time of 1.38.513 which was 0.200 seconds faster than Rosberg in second place. Valtteri Bottas qualified in third place, his fourth out of the last six races. But Bottas was on a quick lap in the final moments of the session and lost the car in the final corner of the session and his chance of stealing pole from Hamilton was gone.
Jenson Button had a great session and ended up finishing in fourth place ahead of local driver Danill Kvyat in fifth place who has had a brilliant weekend so far in front of his home crowd. Kevin Magnussen qualified in sixth place but will need to take a five place grid penalty which will see him fall to eleventh place tomorrow.
Daniel Ricciardo qualified in seventh place ahead of the Ferrari's of Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen who ended the session in eighth and ninth places but they finished ahead of Jean-Eric Vergne who rounded off the top ten finishers.
Sebastian Vettel had a very disappointing qualifying session and finished in eleventh place ahead of Nico Hulkenberg in twelfth place. However, Hulkenberg needs to take his five place grid penalty and this will push him one place up the grip to tenth place tomorrow.
Sergio Perez qualified in thirteenth place ahead of the two Sauber drivers of Esteban Guiterrez and Adrian Sutil who finished the session in fourteenth and fifteenth places respectively. Romain Grosjean finished the session in sixteenth place ahead of Marcus Ericsson in seventeenth place who has had a strong weekend so far.
As we head into the latter stages of the grid, Ericsson qualified ahead of Felipe Massa who finished in eighteenth place despite his fuel pressure problems he encountered. Massa finished ahead of Kamui Kobayashi in nineteenth place, ahead of Pastor Maldonado in twentieth place (who will be at back of the grid due to a five place grid penalty) and Max Chilton in twenty-first place.
The classification of Qualifying at the Russian Grand Prix is as follows below:-
Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1.38.513
Nico Rosberg Mercedes 0.200s
Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 0.407s
Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 0.608s
Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 0.764s
Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 1.118s
Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1.122s
Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1.196s
Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1.258s
Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1.507s
Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1.40.052
Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1.40.058
Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1.40.163
Esteban Guiterrez Sauber-Ferrari 1.40.536
Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 1.40.984
Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1.41.393
Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 1.42.648
Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1.43.064
Kamui Kobayashi Caterham-Renault 1.43.166
Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 1.43.205
Max Chilton Marussia-Ferrari 1.43.649
[NB: Pastor Maldonado, Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen have five place grid penalties. So Maldonado will start at the back of the grid, Hulkenberg in seventeenth place and Magnussen in eleventh place]
Reporting by Sarah Jones
Sochi by Graham and Leigh
