With the reminder of last weekend’s unfortunate event involving Jules Bianchi still prevalent in the garage area, the start to the first ever Russian Grand Prix from the Sochi Autodrom was a bit sombre. When the race actually started, the excitement didn’t pick up either. The Ferrari Russian GP was one of mixed results; both drivers managed to get in the points, not always a guarantee this season, but Valtteri Bottas’s podium finish means that Williams are still ahead of their Italian counterparts in the Constructors’ Championship.
Aside from Nico Rosberg’s huge lockup going into turn one and some other action on the opening lap the field pretty much stayed as it started. Without the super soft tyre and a brand new racing surface the tyre wear just wasn’t there to create the overtaking opportunities that the race needed to spice things up. Though you can hardly blame them for playing it on the conservative side when they were coming to this facility for the very first time and weren’t 100% sure what to expect.
Rosberg locked up his tyres so badly in turn one that he made his pit stop on lap two and stayed on that set of tyres for the remainder of the race. That was the only real drama of the event; waiting to see where he was going to cycle out to in the end. Nico managed to pull back up to second position and finished behind his teammate Lewis Hamilton once again. The one-two finish helped Mercedes AMG Petronas seal its first ever Constructors’ Championship with three races remaining on the schedule.
While the race for first may be over the race for third in the Constructors’ Championship is still being contested. Williams hold a twenty-eight point lead over Ferrari and even though both Ferrari drivers managed to finish in the points and Williams driver Felipe Massa finished out of the points, the Williams were bolstered by a third place finish from Valtteri Bottas.
Fernando Alonso started on the grid seventh, quickly took fifth on the start, but eventually settled into sixth around the mid-way point of the race and that is where he stayed. There was a slight problem with the jack when Alonso came in for his stop, leading to a stop of over seven seconds, and that allowed the McLaren of Kevin Magnussen to get in front of the Ferrari. Though Alonso said that it was probably only a matter of time and that even without the jack failure the McLaren’s were faster than him anyway.
Kimi Räkkönen had an equally uneventful trip through the former Olympic stadiums in Sochi. Coming off of the grid eighth, the Finn slipped to ninth through the course of the race and remained there to the finish. Both Ferrari drivers had to save fuel to the end, as did a lot of other teams, and that, combined with being down on top speed, is what Räkkönen attributed to his less than admirable finishing position. He said he simply wasn’t able to push as hard as he needed to for a better finish.
In a couple weeks we’re off to my homeland of The United States. While I don’t have an American driver to cheer for and the fact that Texas is right around 2,000 miles (3,220km) away from where I actually live, that won’t stop me from cheering on my favourite drivers in the land that I call home.
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