Yesterday we saw the Sochi Autodrom in all it's completeness, a venue that has received a lot of positivity from those few folk who have been driving around the place over the past two days. The circuit is a considerably improvement on the initial footage we saw during the test events held at the circuit a few weeks before the F1 ensemble descends on the edge of the black sea. In many respects the Sochi circuit surpasses it's moral predecessor in the Valencian circuit - it doesn't have any of those needless chicanes merely painted onto the floor with some curbing dotted about the place. Sochi does have the advantage of the Olympic relics populating the backdrop - more entertaining than a couple of boat sheds for the America's cup. All this positivity is, well, confusing because the track map looks really simplistic with a lot of seemingly identical corners, it doesn't have that one feature or sector you look forward too each lap. But it seems to still work - Alonso pointed out in a post session interview that there are many corners that are essentially clones but each one has to be approached slightly differently. It is baffling - I had a go on the most recent simulator model and the Ferrari driver has a point - and turn 13 is devious and evil, but not in a terrible Oschersleben turn one kind of way.
What effect did all of this have on qualifying today, well it seemed as if the teams and drivers were themselves baffled at the way the track evolved and changed throughout the day. Normally a brand new track evolves comprehensively in it's first weekend - as the construction dust and oils are swept clear. It appears as if this circuit isn't obeying that rule - nor is it accumulating rubber from the support series to accelerate track evolution. This all meant Mercedes had their advantage trimmed by the chasing pack under threat from Williams and McLaren.
Qualifying
It became clear people were unsure about how qualifying was going to go because Hamilton came out of the pits on the softer compound tyres, usually reserved for avoiding relegation. Since when would a Mercedes need to avoid relegation - but it came down to the fact that there is little degradation in Sochi. There is going to be some very confused folk sitting in the Pirelli shed wondering why their tyres haven't disintegrated as per usual. Nevertheless it was Hamilton who went out and set the initial pace. Only to be beaten by Rosberg to the tune of three quarters of a second, Hamilton returned serve with his second run - overtaking Nico by 0.01s. It appeared drivers could complete multiple runs on the tyres before they stopped giving out their grip. Jenson Button was having a really strong day once more - sending a message to Ron Dennis in the process with regards to 2015. Jenson was in third on the slower tyres ahead of Ferraris, Williams and Red Bulls all using the softer option.
At the back of the field, the battle to avoid relegation became a concern to the Williams team - having threatened the second row throughout practice - Massa was in a spot of bother. Felipe thought it was a fuel pressure issue, and the team thought it was engine related - either way Massa was down on power. Given that power is really the Williams' only weapon it meant that he was a long way of the pace. At the end of the session Felipe was consigned to relegation. This meant that there was only really one more space in relegation for this first part of qualifying. It was going to be duel between Lotus and Sauber to avoid that fate, but difficulties for Maldonado's battery unit meant he too was doomed to relegation. But the story of the bottom half of the grid once more was Marcus Ericsson for Caterham - who for some reason has stopped being terrible. It turns out that it was an issue with the brake-by-wire system that had been curtailing his pace, a similar problem that has irritated Raikkonen at times. But Marcus outqualified everyone in the bottom division - including Massa and Maldonado. Their drives tomorrow will be interesting.
Q2
In the second part of qualifying, Nico Rosberg set the early pace, while Hamilton's early lap was very unspectacular down in 10th. Valtteri Bottas out of nowhere was then able to defeat the Mercedes team and go fastest, albeit by only 0.008s. McLaren were also getting in on the action, only a matter of tenths off the lead - it was turning into a vast Mercedes powered get together at the front of the grid, and for the time being Hamilton wasn't invited. Alas the Briton took exception and unleashed a bag of vengeful pace to leave a 6 tenth chasm between himself and the rest of the Mercedes family.
The Renault powered cars were beginning to struggle, especially the main Red Bull team themselves - Vettel was trapped down in 16th place over four seconds off the pace of Hamilton. He was also close to two seconds slower than his team-mate as Ricciardo was much closer to making it into the top ten - but the bigger surprise was that the junior Red Bull team were making a much better go of things - more so in the hands of Daniil Kvyat. The Russian on home turf was demolishing the rest of the Red Bull enterprise. With Mercedes powered cars showing well today it was odd to see Force India under pressure at the opposite end of the top ten - a later lap by Fernando Alonso demoted Hulkenberg meaning neither car was in the promotion places. In the closing minutes of the session Vettel attempted to make it through but despite knocking two seconds off his lap time he was still too slow to make it into the top ten. To make matters worse, the time he was aiming for was held by Ricciardo...
Q3
The final part of qualifying started off with a series of quizzically slow lap times - despite the track temperature remaining constant and weather conditions being stable. Few of the initial times would have made it through Q2 and some of them at the bottom end of the top ten would have been beaten by the majority of the GP2 grid. It appeared this was because the drivers were planning on running the entire session on the same set of tyres because the wear rates are so low. The only problem being that outer surface of the compound can overheat and lose a lot of grip in the final corners, thus requiring a cool-down lap between flying laps. In this phase Rosberg claimed the provisional pole position with a one second advantage over Hamilton who ended 6th. Button and Bottas at this point were filling the remaining podium places.
Once everyone had cleared this opening phase Hamilton once more found that pace he showed earlier on in the day and re-took the lead. But Valtteri Bottas was applying some major pressure to the factory Mercedes team sitting in third only 0.006s behind Rosberg. Could this be a repeat of the Austrian GP where Mercedes found themselves off pole position at the hands of a Williams - these newer circuits not sitting well with the dominating team. Jenson Button was just keeping the top three in sight a few tenths further back, but the story of the show was Daniil Kvyat for Toro Rosso - beating the main team and Vergne alike. The Russian was now the lead non-Mercedes in 5th coming into the final efforts.
At the very end of the session Rosberg was going very quickly in his efforts to prevent Hamilton running away with this championship rounds. The German crossed the line with an improved time, but unfortunately for him Lewis had moved the goalpost a little too far clinching pole position it seemed - who else could challenge the Mercedes pairing. Well Valtteri Bottas gave it a damn good go - the Finn set the fastest first sector of the day, before following that up with the fastest second sector. I imagine there were many nervous faces on the Mercedes pitwall. Bottas approached the final sector effectively on pole position, but the thermal effect on the rear tyres was causing a problem, Valtteri was struggling to hang onto the rear of the car in the final couple of corners. Pole was still in reach however until the last corner when Bottas got very sideways and drifted off the track. It was an impressive effort but only managed third place in the end.
The Bonus Points Championship Points Winners
At the end of the first ever qualifying session in Russia in the middle of the Sochi Olympic park we've seen that Mercedes, Williams and McLaren are the main forces to be reckoned with. But it's the points that matter, and here are the results.
- 10pts - Daniil Kvyat - The Russian scores his best ever grid position and is the lead Red Bull liveried car and lead non-Mercedes. A good day
- 8pts - Valtteri Bottas - So so very close to taking his first pole position only defeated by the final corner and those tyres.
- 6pts - Jenson Button - Delivering a clear message to McLaren with another very strong performance today.
- 5pts - Marcus Ericsson - How much of an improvement has this chap been through in the past races, from losing to Mehri in FP1 to beating Massa in qualifying in Russia alone.
- 4pts - Lewis Hamilton - Takes the first ever pole position in Russia has to equate a few points.
- 3pts - Kevin Magnussen - A late effort in Q3 helped offset the incoming penalty he has for a gearbox change
- 2pts - Nico Rosberg - Reasonably close to Lewis time, here's hoping for an actual race long duel tomorrow
- 1pt - Jolyon Palmer - Takes the the GP2 championship title today
Looking to Tomorrow
Just how will the Sochi Autodrom perform as a race venue is a bit of a mystery - the GP3 race in the morning was a processional affair after a rather hectic opening lap. But in contrast the GP2 race was mega, but part of that could be the equality of the cars and cars that can run closely and race with each other. One thing that came out of that GP2 race was that it can take some time to clear a car from the side of the road - Stefano Colleti broke down and required a safety car to clear the track. The safety car intervention also demonstrated how easily tyres can go cold during the wait - both Izawa and Evans ran wide on the restart because of this.
A safety car could be considered likely tomorrow because of the nature of the track - not in terms of causing accidents but simple car recovery. In fact throughout all of practice, support racing and qualifying I haven't seen anyone hit the walls - so in all likelihood it would require cars to hit each other to create an accident situation. It is going to be an interesting race tomorrow, both in terms of another chance for a grand battle at the front - one which lasted seconds in Suzuka and even less than that in Singapore - but further back too. Massa, Hulkenberg and Magnussen all have poor grid slots as a result of penalties and mechanical difficulties so could make their way forward. Can you overtake in Sochi... well I don't know you could in GP2 but not in GP3... so there is only one way to find out.
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