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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Meanwhile, Kimi Raikkonen had to settle for fourth in his Ferrari, 0.127secs off Bottas, with the other Williams of Felipe Massa in fifth, from Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo in sixth and Force India’s Sergio Perez in seventh, all set to start one place higher after Vettel’s penalty. He will start 10th.
Hamilton, who came second and first in the two free practice sessions on Friday, is still searching for his first win of the season as his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg has won all three races – in Australia, Bahrain and China – thus far.
Hamilton’s Mercedes suffered the same hybrid system failure as at the Chinese GP, which he started from last. The change was due to collision damage from the last race in China and unrelated to the electronics problem, the team said. Never in the past has a driver who has won so many races consecutively or the opening three rounds of a season gone on to lose the championship.
“I’m very, very curious as to what is going on so I’ve asked them to give me as much detail as possible”, he said.
Hamilton, the triple world champion and victor in Russian Federation for the past two years but 36 points behind Rosberg in a season full of setbacks, saw his luck desert him in qualifying for the second race in a row.
For the second consecutive race, Hamilton suffered an engine failure in qualifying and failed to post a single lap in the top-10 shoot-out. “I’ve made the most of my opportunities and I have a bit of an advantage in the points right now – but we are only three races down and it would just take one bad weekend for that gap to disappear”, Rosberg said.
The world champion team says its approach was guided by the fact it did not want to break parc ferme conditions so Hamilton can start 10th rather than from the pitlane. “There are good lessons that I’ve learned and I have every plan to use those experiences and tools I learnt to get those experiences to get the fourth, that’s what I’m going for”.
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Button’s team-mate Fernando Alonso also went out in the second session in 14th, alongside the Force India of Nico Hülkenberg and the two Haas entries of Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutiérrez. “I was glad when Seb passed the line that it was good enough”. “That is what is going to power me forward for tomorrow”.
