Nico Rosberg has taken pole position for the 2015 Russian Grand Prix after a brilliant lap saw him take the pole by 3 tenths from team mate Lewis Hamilton. After the initial laps were set Nico was on top, but when Lewis went out on his second run he ran wide at turn 13 and conceded the pole. The session was held in the dry throughout and it saw many teams scrambling for the most track time possible after the oil leak in Practice 1, rain in Practice 2 and Carlos Sainz's severe accident in Practice 3.
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| Pole sitter: Nico Rosberg of Mercedes. |
The first session saw Mercedes in 1st and 2nd and the only team not to equip the super soft rubber. Carlos Sainz did not take part in the session as he was still recovering in hospital from his crash in FP3. Yellow flags were out early in the session as Pastor Maldonado lazily spun his Lotus on the out lap. Early pace was being set by Nico Rosberg as he matched the 2014 pole time with a 1:38.556. The only vibe to take away from Q1 is that the Mercedes looked strong. The car looked planted in the corners and fast down the straights as they kept a comfortable gap to Ferrari in 3rd and 4th. With Q1 ending it saw Fernando Alonso, Marcus Ericsson, Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi all knocked out (Carlos Sainz was the 5th person not to make Q2 as he did not participate). McLaren looked much stronger than Sauber throughout, but Felipe Nasr drove exceptionally to push McLaren's Fernando Alonso into the drop zone. Every team but Manor-Marussia had 1 car into Q2.
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| Force India had a very comfortbale qualifying to take 6th and 7th on the grid. |
Q2 was a quiet session with no yellow or red flags throughout. It started with Lewis Hamilton on top with a time 6 tenths faster than Nico Rosberg. But Rosberg responded almost immediately to go 1 tenth faster than Hamilton, meaning Nico Rosberg was the favorite for pole heading into Q3. Further down the field Felipe Massa made mistakes on his critical lap which saw him manage a very disappointing 15th place. Daniil Kvyat, Felipe Nasr, Jenson Button, Pastor Maldonado and Felipe Massa were all knocked out and will start from 11th to 15th respectively. As mentioned earlier Massa was the big disappointment of the lot, but Daniil Kvyat would have been feeling just as bad as he narrowly missed out on a Q3 slot in front of his home crowd. Meanwhile Jenson Button was extremely happy with his unexpected 13th place for McLaren. Mercedes, Ferrari and Force India were the only teams to have both cars into Q3.
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| Felipe Massa, who was knocked out in Q2. |
Into the top 10 shootout, and most people were out straight away as the tires were proving hard to get up to temperature. So hard that all drivers took an out lap, warm up lap and then hot lap. When the first hot laps were set, Nico Rosberg led the field from Lewis Hamilton on genuine pace. Sebastian Vettel was faster than team mate Raikkonen but only found himself in 4th as Valtteri Bottas stormed to a provisional 3rd place grid slot. As the final runs began, Nico Rosberg didn't improve on his time, leaving the door wide open for Lewis Hamilton to take pole. But for the first time this season Lewis Hamilton choked on a Saturday as he ran wide through Turn 13 effectively ending his lap. He pulled into the pits and conceded to give Nico the pole. Next to cross the line was the Bottas, Vettel and Raikkonen, the two Ferrari drivers were really threatning Bottas to improve his current 3rd place time or risk dropping behind them. Bottas responded calmly and beautifully to improve enough to get ahead of Ferrari and start from 3rd. Meanwhile Vettel led Raikkonen in the team mate battle between Ferrari in 4th and 5th. Next on the grid were the very quiet achievements of Force India, who managed both drivers into Q3 and really proved to be the best of the rest behind the top 3 of Mercedes, Ferrari and Williams. Nico Hulkenberg led Sergio Perez and they will be hoping for a strong race to close the gap to Red Bull in the constructors. Grosjean followed in his Lotus with the lone Toro Rosso of Max Verstappen in 9th. The Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo rounded out the top 10 as the Renault engine continues to struggle on Russia's demanding long straights.
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| Williams driver Valtteri Bottas who managed an exceptional 3rd place grid slot. |
Tomorrows Grid will look like this after penalties have been applied:
1) Nico Rosberg - Mercedes
2) Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes
3) Valtteri Bottas - Williams-Mercedes
4) Sebastian Vettel - Ferrari
5) Kimi Raikkonen - Ferrari
6) Nico Hulkenberg - Force India-Mercedes
7) Sergio Perez - Force India-Mercedes
8) Romain Grosjean - Lotus-Mercedes
9) Max Verstappen - Toro Rosso-Renault
10) Daniel Ricciardo - Red Bull Racing-Renault
11) Daniil Kvyat - Red Bull Racing-Renault
12) Felipe Nasr - Sauber-Ferrari
13) Jenson Button - McLaren-Honda
14) Pastor Maldonado - Lotus-Mercedes
15) Felipe Nasr - Sauber-Ferrari
16) Marcus Ericsson - Sauber-Ferrari
17) Will Stevens - Manor-Ferrari
18) Roberto Merhi - Manor-Ferrari
19) Carlos Sainz - Toro Rosso-Renault
20) Fernando Alonso - McLaren-Honda (35 Place Grid Penalty)
Overall the main notes to take out of qualifying looking toward the race. 1) Mercedes look very strong, there car looks like it was built for this circuit, but can they convert the strong 1 lap pace into long run pace as its believed Russia will be an "easy" one stop. 2) Ferrari are not second. Valtteri Bottas is 2nd, apart from Massa's troubles, Bottas looked faster than Ferrari throughout. Either Raikkonen or Vettel will have to work hard to get ahead of him for a podium. 3) Don't forget about Force India. They look very strong and most people are forgetting about the fact they breezed into Q3 without any worries. Out of all Q3 sessions that they have had both cars in this certainly looked the strongest and the most comfortable for them.
All will be revealed at lights out in just under 3 hours with Nico Rosberg leading from the pole.
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Quite a dominant win for Lewis Hamilton. He moved even closer in claiming this year's Drivers' Championship. He made true to his words when he said he will come back fighting after losing in the Singapore Grand Prix. Let's see if he can keep up with the pace in the upcoming US Grand Prix. Here's a source of sports news for further updates.
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