Team Mercedes continues dominating the Formula One circuit in Russia’s resort city of Sochi with both drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg showing the best lap results in the final practice ahead of the Russian Grand Prix this weekend.
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Pole position for tomorrow’s race gives Ricardo the chance to win his fourth grand prix in a row, putting him well on top of the standings and leading far in front his fellow drivers early into the F1 2016 season.
Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari finished second ahead of Williams’ Valtteri Bottas but is expected to start from seventh on the grid after a five-place penalty due to a gearbox change on his auto, Sport24 reported.
“I went out at the end of Q2 to get a feel and I lost the same power as I lost in China”, Hamilton told Sky F1.
“The auto was balanced perfectly and through the weekend we just progressed so much”, he said.
He said his initial focus in the race on Sunday would be to avoid trouble at the first corner – his auto has suffered damage in first-corner incidents in all three races so far.
“The opposition is still there, so I still need to keep focused and get the job done”.
“Of course I would have liked the gap to be a bit smaller”, Vettel added.
“If Lewis was out there today and I beat him by a couple of tenths, I would be ecstatic because the direct battle brings out these extra-intense emotions”, he said.
“Obviously we benefitted from what happened to Lewis”. We don’t know yet entirely but we’ll have to see.
Behind Bottas will be the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen, with the second Williams of Massa starting fourth, Ricciardo’s Red Bull fifth and Sergio Perez in the Force India in sixth followed by the penalised Vettel. ‘It went really well and felt awesome. He is very strong.
His Red Bull teammate Daniil Kvyat struggled at his home race, barely scraping into the third session and then qualifying eighth, partly thanks to Hamilton’s engine problem.
Now Sunday’s Russian Grand Prix will be all about damage limitation after a power unit problem struck in Saturday’s qualifying, leaving Hamilton 10th on the grid.
He was also given a reprimand following an investigation by the stewards for not rejoining the track in the correct manner after running wide at Turn Two in the first qualifying session. He was later given a reprimand for the misdemeanour. This time, he said, he only wanted “just to recover from wherever I start tomorrow”. “So it’s just a matter of prioritizing them because we haven’t got many people, so we need to be realistic”.
“I’ve never been superstitious about these things, though, and I never will be”. And the same failure I had in the last race as well. “Still, it is a shame, because now we are lacking some laps, especially in the long runs on race trims, which would have allowed us to see how competitive we are”.
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Dutch teenager Max Verstappen was ninth for Toro Rosso with Hamilton 10th. Briton’s Jolyon Palmer, out qualified by his Renault team-mate Kevin Magnussen, was only 18th.
