1st) Sergio Perez - Force India-Mercedes, started P7, finished P3.
The best drive of the weekend without a doubt went to Sergio Perez. The Mexican scored his 5th podium in Formula 1 with a brilliant, but very lucky 3rd place finish. To read more about Sergio's tense last few laps, click here. Sergio Perez deserves the top drive of the weekend as he performed throughout. He finished 4th overall in both Practice 1 and Practice 3 and then took that form over to qualifying and took a very comfortable and convincing 7th place on the grid directly behind team mate Hulkenberg. The race went even better for Perez as he firstly managed to miss the first lap calamity caused by his team mate, and secondly was the first person to pit under the second safety car (for Romain Grosjean) on lap 12. Once every else pitted under the usual pit window (laps 27 through 35) Perez found himself in effective P3 with both Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen behind him. The class of his driving began to show as he continued to post the lap times he needed to stay competitive in 3rd whilst also managing the tire degredation to a desirable amount. The car was a handful for him and he defended brilliantly whilst he still had the rubber. When Bottas and Raikkonen overtook him on the penultimate lap, millions of hearts round the world sunk as Perez throughly deserved to be on the podium. It was only fate that Raikkonen and Bottas would collide on the last lap, giving Perez the podium he truly deserved, one that I'm sure he won't forget for a long time.
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| Sergio Perez celebrates his brilliant 3rd place. |
Sebastian Vettel drove a brilliant race after a mediocre qualifying in Sochi. He could only manage 4th on the grid behind the Williams of Valtteri Bottas. On the start his team mate Kimi Raikkonen just behind jumped him and he was down into 5th. The German's day hadn't gotten off to a good start and he made sure it didn't get worse. On the second safety car restart he got a run on Raikkonen into Turn 2 and they went side by side. Raikkonen however left the track and conceded the position to Vettel. He then preceded to continue with blistering pace toward the second placed Valtteri Bottas. Then 14 laps later on Lap 27 Vettel was within DRS range and forced Bottas to dive into the pits as he was struggling to hold off Vettel. As Bottas got fresh and faster rubber, he was hampered by traffic ahead. Meanwhile Vettel was posting some incredible lap times in clear air and when he eventually pit on lap 31 he comfortably jumped Bottas with Daniel Ricciardo in between them. Vettel was now in 2nd. He stayed there for the rest of the race and drove with smooth and calm manner which meant he never looked challenged. I thought Vettel drove brilliant simply because with a bad qualifying and a bad start to the race he still knuckled down and got his 4th consecutive podium.
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| Sebastian Vettel gets caught in an awkward pose on the podium. |
Felipe Nasr is one driver from the Russian Grand Prix who everybody has bat a blind eye too as they've been too busy focusing on Perez's achievements up front. The Brazilian secured a spectacular 6th place finish for the team, there 2nd best finish of the season behind 5th in Australian Grand Prix. This puts him 13th in the Drivers World Championship, just ahead of Pastor Maldonado and now just 8 points behind Max Verstappen. It wasn't the most entertaining drive as he didn't fight his way to 6th, he actually drove a patience and well timed race and managed to finish "best of the rest" ahead of rivals such as Maldonado, Verstappen and both McLarens. Nasr stayed out of trouble and definitely got the reward for it. I think he deserves more credit than he has been given. He is a driver to watch out for Austin.
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| Felipe Nasr of Sauber-Ferrari. |
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