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Only one talking point for the race in Sochi - Can Hamilton finally finish a race ahead of Rosberg or will Rosberg soldier on and make it seven wins in a row? With perhaps Nico tracks in Spain and Monaco on the horizon Lewis needs a win here. Hamilton having won both Russian GP's should be able to pull it off.

Look for good races from Ricciardo and hometown favorite Kyvat who are driving very well and have the most aggressive tire selection (along with Haas) and also Ferrari who are rumoured to have spent 3 of their last remaining 9 tokens on an early engine upgrade.

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Ferrari is fast tracking a new wing for Sochi, upgraded engine as well. Also James Allison is now back to work following the death of his wife.

Ferrari fast-tracks new front wing for Russia

"For this weekend in Russia, Motorsport.com has learned that Ferrari will introduce a new front wing for both Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen.

It hopes that the step will help it fully exploit the potential of the SF-16H and allow it to make up for the world championship points it has lost through reliability problems.

As revealed last week, Ferrari has also decided to go ahead with combustion improvements to its engine – which will require it to spend three of its remaining development tokens.

The modifications should allow it to raise the compression ratio inside the cylinder – which will lead to increased exhaust gas flow that will help the turbo perform better."

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/ferra ... 92128/?s=1


However Arrivabene is playing it cool:

ARRIVABENE: NOTHING OF GREAT IMPORTANCE FOR SOCHI

“We will have something for Sochi, but nothing of great importance,” said the Italian. “We decided long ago that the philosophy would be of gradual development.”

“When you start a season with a totally new design, it makes no sense to come up with revolutionary (upgrade) packages.”

“For the development of the engine we chose the same philosophy – of course we will use some tokens for performance, but it will be gradual,” Arrivabene revealed.

http://www.grandprix247.com/2016/04/27/ ... for-sochi/

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Drivers plane sharing and arriving in Sochi:

[sagi58]

Drivers plane sharing and arriving in Sochi:

Tells me they are environmentally and fiscally conscientious!
Tells me they enjoy camaraderie!

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Red Bull canopy concept:

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Drivers plane sharing and arriving in Sochi:

Tells me they are environmentally and fiscally conscientious!
Tells me they enjoy camaraderie!

Meanwhile Lewis Hamilton has taken his private jet in the opposite direction to NYC to be on the red carpet and attend the Time 100 Gala. Here he is toasting his idol Prince:

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Practice 2 results - Hamiltons Mercedes is well clear of the rest and the Merc's also have good race pace on the soft tire. Looking like a one stop race with a Merc 1-2 in store.

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Vettel hits electronic trouble in FP2 and only got 10 laps in. He will be able though to make use of Kimi's long run data which was good.



"Ferrari is investigating the electronic issue that caused Sebastian Vettel's Friday practice at the Russian Grand Prix to be cut short.

Vettel's car stopped on track midway through his qualifying simulation and had to be wheeled back to the pits, resulting in him missing half of the session. Vettel confirmed it was an electrical issue, but said the team still needs to understand the problem in full.

"Yeah we had an electrical problem, obviously that's part of the electrical bits on the car," he said. "We don't know yet entirely but we have to see, I'm sure we can fix it but first of all we have to understand what happened.

"It's a bit of a shame because we are lacking a couple of laps -- especially in the long run and race trim -- to see how competitive we are. But I think Kimi did homework for the team so not too bad. I think also here we know roughly what to expect so I think we can still learn a lot from what other people did.""


http://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id/154 ... onic-issue

[myownalias]

I really hope these mechanical failures won't be a feature of the 2016 season for Ferrari, the Prancing Horse is the only team able to remotely compete on pure pace with Mercedes, the constant threat of failures takes away any hope of a real battle for race wins, the title is Mercedes, we all know that, but I hold onto the hope that Vettel or Raikkonen can make the top step.

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Arrivabene was not a happy man when they had him on camera standing there with Vettel in the pits as the mechanics were removing the energy recovery battery.

[myownalias]

Arrivabene was not a happy man when they had him on camera standing there with Vettel in the pits.

I would imagine he would be unhappy, it looks like Ferrari have made gains at the cost of reliability.

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On top of the electronics failure and the loss of most of FP2 Vettel also requires a new gearbox and will suffer a 5 place grid penalty. The hopes of a real motor race in Sochi are waning with only Kimi close enough to the Mercs to grab a place if they make a mistake. Reliability is an issue at Ferrari.

http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-web ... -woes.html

"Sebastian Vettel is set to drop five places on the grid for Sunday’s 2016 Formula 1 Russian Grand Prix after an unscheduled gearbox change on his Ferrari.

The blow comes after Vettel also lost an hour of running in Friday’s second Sochi practice session with a suspected electrical problem on his SF16-H, leaving team mate Kimi Raikkonen to conduct the bulk of Ferrari’s programme."

http://planetf1.com/news/vettel-penalised-five-places/

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Qualification Results:

(Vettel with his grid penalty will start in 7th)

Top ten in Q3

1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1’35.417
2 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1’36.123
3 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1’36.536
4 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1’36.663
5 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1’37.016
6 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-TAG Heuer 1’37.125
7 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1’37.212
8 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull-TAG Heuer 1’37.459
9 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1’37.583
10 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes

Drivers eliminated in Q2

11 Carlos Sainz Jnr Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1’37.652
12 Jenson Button McLaren-Honda 1’37.701
13 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1’37.771
14 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Honda 1’37.807
15 Romain Grosjean Haas-Ferrari 1’38.055
16 Esteban Gutierrez Haas-Ferrari 1’38.115

Drivers eliminated in Q1

17 Kevin Magnussen Renault 1’38.914
18 Jolyon Palmer Renault 1’39.009
19 Felipe Nasr Sauber-Ferrari 1’39.018
20 Pascal Wehrlein Manor-Mercedes 1’39.399
21 Rio Haryanto Manor-Mercedes 1’39.463
22 Marcus Ericsson Sauber-Ferrari 1’39.519

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Looks like Hamilton's failure was the same that he suffered in China during qualifying. He must be hard on these mguh turbo units or Merc missed something.

With the Merc's huge advantage Hamilton should be able to drive up to second place by the end of the race. That's about where he would have finished anyway as Nico seemed to have better speed in qually, 0.5s faster than Hamilton in Q2 which Wolff said were competitive times.

[Jeffo]

Not a Hammy fan then mate? Lol. Can't deny the guys talent though, but jeez he must have walked under some ladders this season! Can't say I'm complaining though, Ricci's got the chance to beat him again. He put a great moved him last race, OK Hamilton was damaged , but still a stunner of a move.