Russian Grand Prix 2016: Winners and Losers from Sochi Race
Nico Rosberg claimed his fourth consecutive victory of the 2016 Formula One season in Sunday's Russian Grand Prix at the Sochi Autodrom.
With Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton again hindered by an engine problem in qualifying and Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel suffering a five-place grid penalty due to a gearbox change, Rosberg started from pole position for the second race in succession and led comfortably from the front.
In his latest damage-limitation exercise, Hamilton recovered well to finish second, but the same cannot be said of Vettel, who collided with Red Bull's Daniil Kvyat on two separate occasions on the first lap before registering his second retirement in four races.
On a day McLaren-Honda's Fernando Alonso and Renault's Kevin Magnussen scored their first points of the season and Nico Hulkenberg completed one of the most disastrous weekends of his F1 career, here are the main winners and losers from Sochi.
Winner: Nico Rosberg
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Another race, another easy win for Rosberg.
As the man himself told the post-qualifying FIA press conference, there is no such thing as an "easy" race in Formula One, but his rivals do seem to be trying their best to make his route to a first world championship as clear as possible in the opening weeks of 2016.
Like at the recent Chinese Grand Prix, the Russian GP was virtually his to lose even before qualifying reached its climax due to Vettel's five-place grid penalty and Hamilton's latest Saturday afternoon engine glitch.
Tempting though it may be to dismiss Rosberg's four straight victories as circumstantial, there is a certain beauty to the way he executes the simple things.
Take, for instance, the start, when Rosberg—with Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen, both of whom have made brilliant getaways at various points this season, for company—pulled away from pole position with near perfection. It was so good he wasn't even required to defend his lead at the first braking zone of Turn 2.
When Vettel's fisticuffs with Kvyat ended in tears and heralded the deployment of the safety car, Rosberg faced the only real threat to his dominance as the field bunched up.
The timing of his restart, though, left Raikkonen for dead at the end of Lap 3, with the Ferrari driver locking up at the penultimate corner as he pathetically tried to keep up. It ensured Rosberg recommenced with an instant lead of one second.
As Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff later told Motorsport.com's Pablo Elizalde, Rosberg's afternoon wasn't quite as simple as it seemed as "some strange signals" came from his power unit, forcing him to ease off toward the end.
But you would never have known it, as Rosberg broke the Sochi lap record on the penultimate tour having lapped all but four drivers. His performance extended his points advantage over Hamilton to 43 and his career-best winning streak—which began at last November's Mexican GP—to seven.
With the next two races taking place in Spain and Monaco, circuits where he has excelled in previous years, who would bet against Rosberg equalling Vettel's record of nine consecutive victories?
Loser: Sebastian Vettel
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With his Ferrari SF16-H buried in the barriers at Turn 3, Vettel wasted little time when it came to waving his arms in disgust.
A fortnight after coming "like a torpedo" at the start of the Chinese GP—as the German told the Red Bull youngster, per Motorsport.com's Valentin Khorounzhiy—that pesky Kvyat had been up to his old tricks again, spoiling Ferrari's afternoon.
Like in Shanghai, Vettel made several attempts to protest his innocence, with television pictures showing him paying a visit to the Red Bull pit wall during the race, no doubt urging team principal Christian Horner to control his driver.
But for the second race in succession, the German—even if he might not admit it—was partly at fault for an avoidable first-lap incident.
Admittedly, there was nothing Vettel could do at Turn 2, where he was nudged into Daniel Ricciardo after Kvyat locked his rear brakes and slid into the Ferrari.
But the four-time world champion seemed to cause his own problems when—either to check the state of his own car or navigate past the limping Force India of Sergio Perez—he slowed rather dramatically in the long left-hander of Turn 3.
At a part of the circuit where the cars zoom past at full throttle and the drivers adopt a variety of racing lines, especially on a crowded opening lap, it was hardly the wisest move. Vettel effectively invited a secondary collision with Kvyat, who duly punted him into a spin and out of the race.
His retirement added insult to injury on the least convincing weekend of the season for Ferrari, who qualified a distant 0.706 seconds behind Rosberg despite introducing an upgraded power unit in Russia, and the Mercedes driver now enjoys a 67-point advantage over Vettel.
Little wonder, then, that Rosberg feels his team "need to stop saying" Ferrari "are very close" to Mercedes, per Sky Sports' William Esler.
Winner: Lewis Hamilton
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As his voice trembled and he fiddled with his large, dark sunglasses in the intense glare of the media pen, there were signs Hamilton was beginning to feel the strain of his everlasting misfortune after qualifying.
From his poor start in Australia to his MGU-H failure on Saturday in China, Hamilton had insisted his current difficulties were all part of a "growing process" of some sort, telling Motorsport.com's Adam Cooper there was "no real need to be too stressed about it" at such an early stage of the season.
Having suffered an identical engine problem in Russia, however—leaving him stranded in 10th as his team-mate eased to pole position—the increasing stress levels were there for all to see.
At a circuit where he won so comfortably in 2014 and '15, damage limitation was again the aim of the game before the race even started.
But after walking into someone else's accident on the first lap in Shanghai—a function of Mercedes' bizarre decision to start him from the back of the grid instead of the pit lane—Hamilton produced a neatly executed recovery drive to claim second place at the Sochi Autodrom.
In avoiding the Turn 2 theatrics by running straight into the run-off area, the three-time world champion made up five positions in one braking zone before the safety car was deployed. And from there, it was all about picking off the drivers standing between him and Rosberg.
Felipe Massa, driving for a Williams team overjoyed just to score points these days, was an immediate victim upon the restart on Lap 4, with Raikkonen succumbing to the No. 44 car three laps later after his slightly overambitious attempt to pass Bottas at Turn 4 opened the door for Hamilton.
Bottas himself proved to be more stubborn in defence, but when he was muscled aside at Turn 2, the hard work was completed for Hamilton, who moved to within 10 seconds of Rosberg at one stage before a "water-leak problem"—as Toto Wolff told Motorsport.com's Pablo Elizalde—forced him to nurse his W07 to the chequered flag.
Although he lost a further seven points to Rosberg in Russia, the style of his recovery suggests a return to winning ways is only a matter of time and luck.
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Loser: Daniil Kvyat
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To hit another car on the opening lap of a grand prix is careless; to hit that car twice in the space of two corners is inexcusable.
As noted ahead of the race, how Kvyat channeled the confidence gained from his third-place finish in the Chinese GP was always bound to determine his success in his home event and prove whether that timely podium appearance could be a turning point in his stuttering Red Bull career.
Not for the first time, however, one step forward only resulted in Kvyat taking three steps back.
His error under braking for Turn 2 not only damaged his own car but that of team-mate Ricciardo—widely regarded as the standout performer of the first three races—whose RB12 acted as a cushion for Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari.
Vettel's arm-waving antics, expletive-ridden pit-to-car radio message and visit to the Red Bull pit wall will do little to enhance Kvyat's reputation, with the Russian saying he has become something of an "easy" target, according to Motorsport.com's Charles Bradley.
But far more worrying was the lack of support for the 22-year-old from within his own team.
It was revealing that Horner made no attempt to argue Vettel might have orchestrated his own downfall in the second incident at Turn 3, suggesting Kvyat "misjudged that first corner and then hit Sebastian" and "screwed our race completely" by giving "away a lot of points," per Bradley.
With the team boss refusing to defend his driver, it is obvious Kvyat—who ultimately finished 15th after receiving a 10-second stop-and-go penalty—is on increasingly thin ice.
Winner: Fernando Alonso
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The general consensus is that Alonso drives at 99 per cent of his ability for most of the time and only tends to deem us worthy of 100 per cent effort when he senses a good opportunity and a strong result.
Those good results, of course, were once podiums, grand prix victories and world titles, delivered with relentless, spirited performances that would live long in the memory.
Yet with McLaren-Honda still some way away from challenging the likes of Mercedes—as evidenced by the way Hamilton, even with the aid of DRS, simply breezed past the two-time world champion on the back straight at Sochi—points finishes have become the absolute limit for Alonso.
Since McLaren have only rarely challenged for those top-10 results over the last 18 months, that lack of effort, motivation and discipline has often been confused for signs Alonso, at the age of 34, is beginning to lose his powers and is edging ever closer to retirement, as noted by Sky Sports' Johnny Herbert.
It is true the issue of Alonso's decline is more relevant than ever, although his performance in the Russian GP suggested he remains as formidable a force as he was during the height of his Ferrari days.
In just his second race back following his Australian GP crash, team-mate Jenson Button outqualified the Spaniard by 0.1 seconds, as McLaren again came desperately close to reaching the third qualifying session on merit.
But when he emerged from the run-off area of Turn 2 in eighth place, having started 14th, he was back to full motivation and 100 per cent effort, sensing, sniffing and searching for a good opportunity and a strong result.
With Honda's power unit still underpowered and inefficient, the long straights and stop-start nature of the Sochi Autodrom were not expected to favour McLaren. Yet Alonso ran comfortably in the top 10 for much of the grand prix despite being forced to prioritise fuel saving, as he told the team's official website.
A short burst of pace toward the end of the race allowed him to register the fifth-fastest lap and, with a sixth-place finish, secure his first points finish since Hungary 2015.
Loser: Nico Hulkenberg
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Both Force India drivers celebrated their 100th grand prix appearances in Russia, but while Perez appears to be improving with experience, Hulkenberg only seems to be getting worse.
Perez and Hulkenberg have established one of the most competitive, productive inter-team relationships on the grid in their two full seasons as team-mates, with the former claiming occasional podium finishes as the latter accumulates valuable, consistent constructors' championship points.
Often the pair have been far too close to call, yet Hulkenberg—who sat out the first free-practice session as the team allowed their resident time waster Alfonso Celis to get behind the wheel—was the second-best Force India driver throughout the Sochi weekend.
As Perez hauled his car to seventh place in qualifying, the German was floundering in 13th, informing the team over pit-to-car radio his fastest Q2 lap was "as good as it gets" despite being 0.489 seconds slower than his team-mate.
And less than seven months after spinning and retiring at Turn 2 on the opening lap in Russia, Hulkenberg was again pointing in the wrong direction after Haas' Esteban Gutierrez locked up and slammed into the rear of his VJM09.
Hulkenberg, who has been involved in one too many untidy incidents since the second half of 2015, was an innocent victim on this occasion.
But on a day Perez recovered from an early puncture to register his first points of the season with ninth, there is a growing suspicion the Force India drivers are no longer equals.
Winner: Kevin Magnussen
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As Magnussen told the team's official website ahead of the Chinese GP, a "normal" race weekend was all he needed to score the first points of Renault's return to the F1 grid.
Having suffered a puncture on the first lap in Australia and a grid-drop penalty for missing the weighbridge in Bahrain, the Dane's misery continued in Shanghai, where a suspension failure in practice compromised his preparations as the Enstone-based team endured their least competitive race for two years.
It felt as though Magnussen's prayers for a weekend without interference were falling on deaf ears in the buildup to the Russian GP, when Renault confirmed 20-year-old Sergey Sirotkin would replace him in the first practice session immediately after signing the Moscow native as a test driver.
But this time, Magnussen overcame the rather questionable priorities of his employers to finally get Renault off the mark.
As with McLaren-Honda's MP4-31, the Sochi Autodrom was not expected to play to the strengths of the R.S.16 car, which is essentially last year's Lotus with a brighter colour scheme and a Renault engine.
After a typically underwhelming performance in qualifying, though—Magnussen and team-mate Jolyon Palmer have failed to progress from Q1 since Australia—Renault were more competitive in the race, when the opening-lap chaos allowed both drivers to restart from the top 10 after the safety car period.
Adopting a one-stop tyre strategy, Magnussen succeeded in a four-car battle with Romain Grosjean, Ricciardo and Carlos Sainz at the halfway stage. And he submitted an early contender for Overtake of the Season with a late lunge down the inside of the Red Bull driver at Turn 4 on Lap 29.
He later admitted, per the team's official website, Renault "were a bit lucky" to finish as high as seventh due to the trials and tribulations of others.
But a change of fortune was long overdue for Magnussen, who has scored his first F1 points since November 2014 and his highest finish since that year's Russian GP.
All timing and tyre data, as well as team radio quotes, are sourced from the official F1 website and the FOM television feed.
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