Dominant Hamilton wins inaugural Russian GP

This afternoon we saw Lewis Hamilton achieving his 31st Grand Prix win of his career and equalling the record set by Nigel Mansell by winning in the inaugural Russian Grand Prix ahead of his team mate Nico Rosberg and Valtteri Bottas.

Heading into the race, Mercedes only needed to secure 25 points to secure the Constructors Championship, no matter how many points Red Bull got in the race today. And with another Mercedes 1-2 finish, Mercedes are officially crowned as Constructors Champions and this comes as no surprise to any pundit or fan given how they performed this season and all credit goes to them for producing a competitive car this season.

But at the start of the race, we saw a lot of action at the front with the Mercedes drivers. With both Hamilton and Rosberg having great starts, Rosberg saw a gap to overtake Hamilton and went for it. However during Turn 2, Rosberg went wide, locked up his tyres severely and gained an advantage.

Rosberg then had to had the place back to Hamilton, had to pit for new tyres at the end of the lap and then had a great drive to recover back to second place behind Hamilton who didn't put a foot wrong all day and goes into the United States Grand Prix with a 17 point lead in the championship over his team mate.

Valtteri Bottas finished the race on the podium once again in third place and has done a superb job all weekend long, despite the mistake in qualifying. Bottas finished ahead of the McLaren drivers of Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen who finished in fourth and fifth places and gained their best result since Australia in March. This result now sees McLaren regaining fifth in the Constructors Championship ahead of Force India.

Fernando Alonso finished the race in sixth place ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in seventh who were closely in a battle for the position during the second half of the race. Both Alonso and Ricciardo finished ahead of Sebastian Vettel who struggled over the course of the weekend but managed to stay ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in ninth place and Sergio Perez in tenth who fought his way past his teammate, the Williams of Felipe Massa and both of the Toro Rosso drivers to gain the final point of the race.

A disappointed Felipe Massa finished the race out of the points in eleventh, even though he had a car that was competitive enough to be in the top 5 if he didn't experience fuel pressure problems in qualifying yesterday. Nico Hulkenberg also had a difficult weekend and finished the race in twelfth place after battling with the Toro Rosso drivers of Jean-Eric Vergne and local driver Daniil Kvyat who finished in thirteenth and fourteenth places (with Kvyat being one lap down on the leaders).

Both Vergne and Kvyat had a strong weekend but were not competitive enough when it mattered in the race today and went slowly backwards down the grid while battling with fuel consumption problems during the race while also trying to fight as much as they could for the highest result possible.

But both of the Toro Rosso drivers finished ahead of the Sauber drivers of Esteban Guiterrez and Adrian Sutil who finished in fifteenth and sixteenth places, a lap down from Hamilton. But credit to Guiterrez for getting 39 laps out of the tyres today and was running as high as eighth place in the race today.

Romain Grosjean once again finished ahead of his team mate Pastor Maldonado in seventeenth place, with both of the Lotus drivers sadly not able to challenge for higher grid positions and finished one lap down from Hamilton. But they did enough to finish ahead of Marcus Ericsson in nineteenth place albeit two laps down from Hamilton.

Kamui Kobayashi and Max Chilton did not finish the race due Kobayashi being told to stop by his team after finding something on the telemetry on his car that hasn't been disclosed to the media as of yet and Chilton suffering problems with the front left of his car.

A Graham & Leigh “Lines” edition “Sochi”

The classification of the race at the Russian Grand Prix is as follows below:-

Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1.31.50.744
Nico Rosberg Mercedes 13.687s
Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 17.425s
Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 30.234s
Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 53.616s
Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1.00.016s
Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1.01.812s
Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1.06.185s
Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1.18.877s
Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1.20.067s
Felipe Massa Williams-Renault 1.20.877s
Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1.21.309s
Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1.37.295s
Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1 lap
Esteban Guiterrez Sauber-Ferrari 1 lap
Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 1 lap
Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1 lap
Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 1 lap
Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 2 laps
Kamui Kobayashi Caterham-Renault Not classified
Max Chilton Marussia-Ferrari Not classified

[NB Mercedes Petronas AMG F1 Team are now crowned 2014 Formula One Constructors World Champions]

Reporting by Sarah Jones