Well, Russia your time as a GP débutante has now come to it's conclusion and I don't think the events of the 53 laps this afternoons foray into the unknown will not live too long in the memories of those looking on. To think that the top four positions away from the line were the same at the fall of the chequered flag tells the majority of the story from the first ever Russian GP. The other thing that needs sorting out is the goings on within the Mercedes team - their car was enormously dominant once again as we were treated to another demonstration of precisely how fast the car can go. But as has been the case for far too many races we have been comprehensively denied an ultimate battle for the lead. Generally if one of those silver cars goes missing for whatever reason, the challenge for ultimate honours completely vanishes - and we end up with another rendition of Singapore. The two cars have barely shared the same corner for more than a few moments since Bahrain - Spa ended at lap two, Hungary came close a decent fight but ran out of laps. Rosberg jumped out of the way in Monza and broke down in Singapore... It has started to become an annoyance - today Nico had another chance to strike up a battle and regain some points and immediately messed the whole thing up... damn it.
The Race
Having not seen any of the morning races I had no idea how the track evolution progressed into the final day of this Russian GP, but I had heard positive things about the contests. Even the GP2 race on Saturday provided some quality racing - but in each instance the contest started to stagnate after the flurry of action at the start. At that point a safety car is needed to put an end to the stagnation and inject some more energy and unpredictability.
At the start the majority of the grid headed down to the kink of turn one in unison - Ferrari drivers making a slightly better start to those around them. It nearly cost Raikkonen as he went round the outside of Kvyat through the first corner and almost ended up in the outside wall. Ricciardo in the main team almost put Magnussen in the inside wall - it seemed that even though these modern fancy circuits have so much space, people always wan't a little bit more. Before everyone reached turn two, the first braking zone - Rosberg was on the inside looking at the lead, and for whatever reason went in far too deep and severely locked both front tyres. Nico scampered across the run-off and took the lead by cheating effectively. He wasn't the only one - several cars were taking some alternate lines and whether you won or lost in this chaotic melee of track limit violations determined the whole race outlook. It was almost three wide through turn three on the opening lap with Vergne several shades of sideways alongside Sebastian Vettel and Magnussen to the inside of the pair of them.
Vergne and Magnussen managed to stay two wide for the next three corners, in each case the McLaren running off the circuit - it seemed it was a complete free for all in terms of track limits. In fact considering this was a completely new venue - as pointed out in commentary - it is surprising to note that counter measures were not fundamentally built into the circuit design to stop this behaviour. Nico was informed over the radio to allow Hamilton back through because he made the most grandiose shortcut - but the German informed the team that his comprehensive error in turn two had left him with two very damaged tyres. He had to pit at the end of the first lap, and was informed that his new strategy involved running the entire race on a single set of tyres. This was now effectively a non-stop race on a set of Pirellis... like that would have happened last season.
Back on track and it appeared all of the Red Bull sponsored cars had converged on each other - Kvyat had fallen backwards while Vergne made an impressive start. with Vettel and Riccardo in close attention. The two main team drivers made it look far too easy when overtaking the local driver - with the DRS in effect Daniil had no defence on the run into turn 13. It appeared Toro Rosso in general were struggling a lot more than their qualifying pace suggested they would. After getting the better of Magnussen on the opening lap - Vergne was under pressure to retain that position. Kevin took the place in turn two but Vergne went two wide on the outside all the way round the monolithic turn three to retake the place. Alas it didn't help - like Kvyat, Vergne had no defence to a DRS fuelled charge, and Magnussen was clear and gone down the road. It got worse for Vergne when the Red Bull crusaders appeared at his rear wing - first Vettel and then Ricciardo dispatched the Frenchman and set off after their next target. However Ricciardo was a little displeased with Vettel's pace and in a roundabout way asked to be allowed past. Just like the last time Ricciardo requested assistance the lines went quiet and Vettel refused to yield.
At the very back of the field Rosberg was making progress - being careful not to overuse the tyres as they did have to make it to the end of the race. Peculiarly he was being followed by Felipe Massa who also made a lap one stop for no apparent reason - but the paring were mirroring the Red Bull drivers and tag-teaming their way through the field. Their first target was Marcus Ericsson in 15th place, naturally the Caterham had nothing in it's arsenal to defend against two very quick Mercedes powered cars. This was soon followed up by unchallenged passes on Grosjean and Gutierrez in their march back towards the points paying positions. If Rosberg was going to the front, then Massa was making sure he tagged along - this plan started to come apart slightly when they came across Sergio Perez. Because a Mercedes powered Force India couldn't be brushed aside in a straight line like everything else. Rosberg had to throw the Mercedes down the inside to make the pass stick in turn two as the DRS didn't get him all the way alongside to begin with.
Because this was only to be a one stop race, on a track on which tyre degradation rates were a bit of an unknown, so there was no clearly defined pit-stop window. Drivers came in when they felt the tyres were going away, in order to minimise any form of time loss - of course with a single stop it is all the more important for that stop to go well. It didn't for Ferrari and for Fernando Alonso... even more reason for the Spaniard to seek for a seat in a new team for 2015. The car dropped off the jack and had to be lifted again, when the stop was complete, for some reason a second jack was brought in as Fernando was trying to leave. Fortunately Alonso had the presence of mind not to floor it or the man with the new jack would have been mowed down. This delay cost Fernando fifth place to Kevin Magnussen, but joined just in front of Vettel. Kvyat also had a slightly slow stop and fell out of the points - the metaphorical wheels were falling of Toro Rosso's collective wagon this afternoon.
After events in the supporting categories it seemed that due to limited access to the side of the track, and stopped car would cause a safety car due to allow the car to be cleared. To be honest this was a race that definitively needed a safety car to spice things up - even more so with Rosberg nearing the front as other cars stopped and rejoined behind him. For a split second it seemed like
we might get one as Adrian Sutil was pointing in the wrong direction on the exit of turn two. Replays showed that it was another incident between Lotus and Sauber - this time it wasn't the erratic Venezuelan who was responsible. Grosjean made an attempted pass on Sutil but the two cars managed to converge on the exit and the German was span round. Sutil got the car going again, and were spared the safety car... damn. Grosjean was handed a 5 second pit stop penalty for the contact.
After all the stops were completed, Rosberg was now in third place - how dominant does a car have to be to drive through the field on one set of tyres faster than all but one car in the field. Nico had now found himself in Valtteri Bottas' slipstream - conventionally a Williams is nearly impossible to overtake because of how fast it is in a straight line. But today nothing was getting in Rosberg's way - even on tyres that had now done over half the race. Again at the end of the DRS section of track into turn two Nico placed the car on the inside and refused to give Bottas any space to defend the position on the exit. This now meant that Rosberg was second - effectively going from last to second in 30 laps without stopping. Massa who was following Rosberg early in the race until he got caught behind Perez, was trying to emulate the Mercedes' drivers recovery progress but on the softer tyre. This plan didn't work out and he had to pit for a second time and dropped outside of the points.
As a demonstration of how processional the race had become - with just short of 20 laps remaining in the race - the top nine positions were now settled, with the only changes and racing happening outside the points. Several battles were forming on track but none of them showed any sign of developing. The most interesting - if it really took place - was between Alonso and Vettel, the Ferrari driver had Sebastian in close company. Given how brilliant some of their duels have been over the season and in previous years it should have been brilliant. But the minimal top speed of the Red Bull prevented Vettel from making a serious charge against Fernando and thus the places stagnated. Having lost his first racing buddy, Felipe Massa paired up with Sergio Perez in an effort to make it back into the points. They came up upon Vergne's Toro Rosso who was still struggling for pace, first Perez took the place in turn two, opening the door for Massa down up the inside of the long turn three. Kvyat was having a similar duel with the other Force India of Hulkenberg - having lost the place to the German, Daniil made a last ditch effort to steal it back under braking. Kvyat locked up significantly and flat-spotted the left front, while these tyres were not wearing out - they were very vulnerable to being locked. Kvyat had to pit to remove the damaged tyres that were vibrating badly - while the death state might have faded yesterday... I suspect it has returned today.
In the final ten laps of the race, the only remaining battle was between Massa and Perez, Felipe trying to wrestle the final points place from the Mexican. However for some reason, none of this was actually broadcast on television, there were some shots of the Alonso/Vettel chase but that wasn't going anywhere. In fact a lot of the TV coverage in this final phase was devoted to showing Bernie having a chat with Vladimir Putin who had just arrived at the track with a personal army of bodyguards. Putin should have turned up for the support races in the morning, they were far more fun... so I'm told as I haven't seen them yet.
When the chequered flag dropped at the end of the race it marked another uncontested victory for Lewis Hamilton as Rosberg continues to do his best to throw the championship away. In a demonstration of the unassailable advantage Mercedes have, Nico still finished second passing the entire field in 31 laps... in many ways it was a crushing display. Valtteri Bottas remains the fastest car from the remainder of the pack taking the final podium position ahead of Jenson Button again demonstrating to the team he is worth a seat in 2015. Magnussen finished in 5th despite never really seeing another car after he passed Vergne at the beginning of the race. Alonso and Vettel crossed the line without exchanging positions in their battle for 6th and 7th places. A second Ferrari/Red Bull pairing came home in 8th and 9th, Ricciardo much further ahead of Raikkonen in this pairing. The final points place was held be Perez who kept Massa at bay.
The Bonus Points Championship Points Winners
Well, today might not have been the most enthralling of races with the positions decided long before the final flag was dropped. It was one of many demonstrations of the brutal advantage Mercedes have over everyone else, and advantage that has given them the easiest constructors championship victory since Schumacher and Ferrari wiped the floor with everyone. But points need to be awarded and they are as follows.
- 25pts - Nico Rosberg - Even through that is a Mercedes, 52 laps on one tyre set and last to second in 32...
- 18pts - Valtteri Bottas - Still the Finn is the one keeping the most pressure on the Mercedes team
- 15pts - Felipe Massa - Aside from the bizarre early stop Felipe almost recovered from a poor qualifying to take home some points
- 12pts - Jenson Button - A good job in the McLaren today, almost had a podium before Roberg defeated everyone.
- 10pts - Jean-Eric Vergne - Easily making the pass of the race round the outside of Magnussen in turn three, why is he being fired again?
- 8pts - Kevin Magnussen - For his part in the opening lap battle with Vergne again - two wide for three corners without making any contact
- 6pts - Fernando Alonso - Well done for being sharp enough to know what was happening at the stop, instead of instinctively pulling away into the jack man
- 4pts - Lewis Hamilton - He did win the race but it was completely uncontested and effortlessly easy
- 2pts - Romain Grosjean - Here's two points for hitting something, because sod all else was happening
- 1pt - Kamui Kobayashi - Gets a point for being so chirpy in the face of such adversity, being asked to retire the car without an explanation at the time and the uncertainty of retaining his seat for Austin and beyond
Looking ahead to America
With three races to go we are running out of events for Rosberg to redeem himself - hopelessly slow in Japan and ruining his only overtaking effort today has cost him many points in the championship. Since the incident at Spa he has lost 46 points to Hamilton, and at this rate it seems unlikely that the German will be able to recover. The US GP in Austin provides the next chapter in this ongoing saga, and even though it is three weeks away the podium places have virtually already been decided, considering that Bottas was uncharacteristically strong last season in a Williams that had no right being near the points. Give him a car that is capable of reaching the podium this time and 3rd place looks very plausible. Anything higher will require something to go very wrong at Mercedes.
The Circuit of the Americas in Austin is sort of a menagerie of features of other famous F1 circuits - such as the maggots/Becketts sequence form Silverstone, just made bigger (because it is Texas after all), and Istanbul's mega turn 8 (this time smaller). Sometimes this works out - sector one is magnificent, but the twisted replication of Hokkenheim's stadium section doesn't really work too well. It was a lot of fun in it's debut year in 2012, so here's hoping it can deliver what Sochi and so many recent races couldn't - a no holds barred showdown between Rosberg and Hamilton.
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