The 2015 Russian Grand Prix was a rather dramatic and incident packed race.
Nico Rosberg was having an almost flawless weekend , topping every session and getting pole position too , until his throttle pedal broke due to which he had to retire in the early stages of the race. Now this retirement for Rosberg means that he is 73 points behind his teammate and championship rival Lewis Hamilton. Adding to Rosberg's miseries Sebastian Vettel has now jumped him in the standing taking 2nd place in the championship from Rosberg. Nico Rosberg's title hopes just died with his throttle, I bet he'd like double points in the last race of this season.
There were two safety car periods one following a accident involving Nico Hulkenberg and Marcus Ericsson and the other following a high speed crash of Lotus' Romain Grosjean , This caused a mix up the tyre strategies with drivers opting to pit and the others staying out.
Sebastian Vettel had a clean race finishing in P2 . He now also holds the lap record at Sochi!
In case you missed it ,Vettel managed to bring the gap to Hamilton down from 13 to 5.9 seconds. Kimi Raikkonen had an amazing start , managing to put himself upto P3 from P5. Eventually losing place to Valtteri Bottas and his teammate Sebastian Vettel. In the rounds of pitstops , Ferrari had managed to get Vettel ahead of Bottas , but couldn't do the same with Raikkonen who found himself behind Bottas ,Ricciardo and Perez. (Daniel Ricciardo later retired due to an suspension issue) On the last two laps Bottas and Raikkonen had managed to get ahead of Perez , in a desperate move into T4 Raikkonen and Bottas collided. Bottas retired , Raikkonen finished 5th.(Raikkonen has now been penalized with a 30s penalty and now finishes in P8)
Due the Raikkonen's penalty Mercedes have won the Constructor's Champion for a second time in succession ! Congratulations !
Mclaren Honda had actually managed to score their first double point finish of the season with Jenson Button P9 and Fernando Alonso P10. The celebrations were unfortunately short lived when Alonso was called to the stewards and was given a 5s time penalty for for exceeding track limits.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was present at the track today. He enjoyed chats with F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone and greeted the drivers at the cool down room , and also presented the first place trophy.
Also , Bernie Ecclestone confirmed that Pirelli will be the sole tyre supplier for F1 until 2019.
Until the next race,
Goodbye.
(all pictures courtesy : corbis images)
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