The Russian Grand Prix is an annual Formula 1 race held at Sochi Autodrom. A street circuit built around Olympic Park in Sochi. The plans were made to host a Formula 1 event in Moscow for the 1983 season as the Grand Prix of the Soviet Union, these plans fell through. In 2010, it was officially announced that the Russian city of Sochi, which was also preparing to host the 2014 Winter Olympics, will host a new event on the F1 schedule beginning in the 2014 Formula 1 season under a seven-year deal.
Russian Prix, Round four of the 2017 Formula 1 season
Circuit Name: Sochi Autodrom – Street Circuit
Race Laps: 53
Circuit Length: 5.848 km (3.634 mi)
Race Length: 309.732 km (192.459 mi)
Number of corners: 18 (12 Right, 6 Left)
DRS Zone: Two Zones (Zone 1 Between Turn 1 and 2, zone 2 Between turn 10 and 13)
Circuit Direction: Anti Clockwise
Pole Position 2016: Nico Rosberg – Mercedes 1:35.417
Race Lap Record: 1:39.094 Nico Rosberg – Mercedes 2016
Pirelli used compounds
For the first 5 round of the 2017 Formula 1 season, Pirelli will supply all teams with the same sets of compounds, following the introduction on the new wider and bigger tires.
Compounds sets will be as follows:
7 of the softest (P Zero Purple ultra-soft here)
5 of the middle (P Zero Red supersoft here)
2 of the Hardest (P Zero Yellow Soft here)
Tyres that must be available (one of them to be used) at some point in the race:
One set of P Zero Yellow soft
One set of P Zero Red supersoft
There are the tyres assigned for Q3 in qualifying:
One set of P Zero Purple ultrasoft
MARIO ISOLA – HEAD OF CAR RACING
“The race follows a two-day test in Bahrain, so it will be interesting to see how the lessons learned there translate into on-track performance and tyre management in Russia. On the face of it, with Sochi being a low-severity circuit and more durable tyres this year, it should be a relatively straightforward one-stop race. However, this is the first time we are going there with the ultrasoft tyre, so the effect that it has together with the new generation of cars remains to be seen. The performance gap between the softest compounds is relatively small, so all three choices are potential race tyres in Sochi.”
Numbers and Facts
Most wins (driver) 2 HAMILTON
Most wins (constructor) 3 MERCEDES
Wins from pole position 2 2014 – 2016
Lowest grid for past winner 2 2015
Most recent 1-2 finish 2016 HAMILTON-ROSBERG for MERCEDES
Most emphatic win (here) 25.022 2016
Closest winning margin 5.953 2015
Safety Car-affected races 2 2015 – 2016
Fastest race (here) 2014 53L @1:31’50.744
Slowest race (here) 2015 53L @1:37’11.024
Most pole positions (driver) 2 ROSBERG
Most pole positions (constructor) 3 MERCEDES
What Happened last race here?
Nico Rosberg won the race from pole position, ahead of his teammate Lewis Hamilton, with Kimi Raikkonen completing the podium for Ferrari.
Sebastian Vettel retired from the race on the first lap, after contact with Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat.
By securing pole position, winning the race, setting the fastest lap and leading every lap, Nico Rosberg achieved the first grand slam of his career.
2016 Race Classification
|
Pos. |
Driver |
Constructor |
Time/Retired |
Grid |
|
1 |
Nico Rosberg |
Mercedes |
1:32:41.997 |
1 |
|
2 |
Lewis Hamilton |
Mercedes |
+25.022 |
10 |
|
3 |
Kimi Raikkonen |
Ferrari |
+31.998 |
3 |
|
4 |
Valtteri Bottas |
Williams-Mercedes |
+50.217 |
2 |
|
5 |
Felipe Massa |
Williams-Mercedes |
+1:14.527 |
4 |
|
6 |
Fernando Alonso |
McLaren-Honda |
+1 Lap |
14 |
|
7 |
Kevin Magnussen |
Renault |
+1 Lap |
17 |
|
8 |
Romain Grosjean |
Haas-Ferrari |
+1 Lap |
15 |
|
9 |
Sergio Perez |
Force India-Mercedes |
+1 Lap |
6 |
|
10 |
Jenson Button |
McLaren-Honda |
+1 Lap |
12 |
|
11 |
Daniel Ricciardo |
Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer |
+1 Lap |
5 |
|
12 |
Carlos Sainz Jr. |
Toro Rosso-Ferrari |
+1 Lap |
11 |
|
13 |
Jolyon Palmer |
Renault |
+1 Lap |
18 |
|
14 |
Marcus Ericsson |
Sauber-Ferrari |
+1 Lap |
22 |
|
15 |
Daniil Kvyat |
Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer |
+1 Lap |
8 |
|
16 |
Felipe Nasr |
Sauber-Ferrari |
+1 Lap |
19 |
|
17 |
Esteban Gutiérrez |
Haas-Ferrari |
+1 Lap |
16 |
|
18 |
Pascal Wehrlein |
MRT-Mercedes |
+2 Laps |
20 |
|
Ret |
Max Verstappen |
Toro Rosso-Ferrari |
Power unit |
9 |
|
Ret |
Sebastian Vettel |
Ferrari |
Collision |
7 |
|
Ret |
Nico Hulkenberg |
Force India-Mercedes |
Collision |
13 |
|
Ret |
Rio Haryanto |
MRT-Mercedes |
Collision |
21 |
Did you know?
DRIVERS
✪ Sebastian Vettel has only taken pole once for Ferrari, in Singapore 2015
✪ Vettel has still not won back-to-back Grand Prix since he won the 2013 Brazilian Grand Prix. That race ended a 9-race run of victories that started in Belgium, (BEL, ITA,SIN, KOR, JAP, IND, ABU, USA, BRA)
✪ Lewis Hamilton is just 5 pole positions from equalling Michael Schumacher’s all-time record of 68 F1 GP pole positions. Since he has been at Mercedes he has taken
pole 37 times already. That is over 40% of all races he’s started for the team (37/ 80 = 46.3%). He is also just 2 behind Ayrton Senna’s (second-best) career total of 65 pp’s
✪ Hamilton in Bahrain scored his 107th F1 podium to beat Alain Prost’s 106 F1 podiums. Only Michael Schumacher has achieved more F1 podiums (155)
✪ Hamilton has won (54) 28.3% of all GP he’s started (191) and is in the top 10 drivers races to win ratio of all-time. This is how he compares:-
- Fangio 47.0%, 2. Ascari 40.6%, 3. Clark 34.7%, 4. M. Schumacher 29.7%, 5. Hamilton 28.3%, 6. Ja. Stewart 27.2%, 7. Prost 25.6%, 8. A. Senna 25.5%,
- Vettel 24.3% (44/ 181), 10. S. Moss 24.2% 10.
✪ Hamilton has now led 102 different F1 Grand Prix races. Only Michael Schumacher has led more (142)
✪ Before Valtteri Bottas Hamilton has had 4 different teammates in F1. Fernando Alonso, Heikki Kovalainen, Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg. Of the 4 Alonso is now the only one left racing in F1
✪ Bottas’s next points finish will mark the 50th Grand Prix in which he has finished in the top 10 and scored points. To date, he has started 80 Grand Prix
✪ Felipe Massa was 36 on April 25th
✪ Sergio Perez needs just 1 more podium to become the Mexican driver with the most F1 podiums (currently =1 with Pedro Rodriguez on 7)
✪ Romain Grosjean was 31 on April 17th
✪ Daniil Kvyat was 23 on 26th April
✪ Russia is likely to be the 75th Grand Prix contested by Fernando Alonso since he last won (Spain 2013) and the 50th Grand Prix since he led a race or scored a podium
result (Hungary 2014)
✪ Even though Alonso has yet to be around for the waving of the chequered flag, Lance Stroll is in fact now the only driver without a classified race finish so far this season.
Alonso’s McLaren was retired to the garage with 3 laps to go in Bahrain but was officially classified as a race finisher in 14th place
CONSRTUCTORSCONSTRUCTORS’
✪ Ferrari last season was the only team to score championship points at all 21 events
✪ Bahrain was Ferrari’s 150th Grand Prix start on Pirelli tyres. It is 30 more races on the Italian-made rubber than any other constructor
✪ Mercedes in Russia will be aiming to lockout the front row for the 49th time. The all-time record is 62 and is jointly held by McLaren and Williams
✪ Mercedes’s next fastest lap of the race will be the marque’s 50th as a F1 World Championship constructor
✪ Red Bull has achieved a podium result for at least one of their drivers podium in 100 different F1 Grand Prix
✪ The current Williams team traces its origins back to the setting up of Williams Grand Prix Engineering by Frank Williams and Patrick Head in 1977. This year the team will
be celebrating its 40th anniversary. The team began by running a March for Belgian Patrick Neve who sadly died earlier is year and later in 1978, became a constructor
running a single FW06 car for Alan Jones. In 1979 the team expanded to 2 cars with Clay Regazzoni joining Jones. Regazzoni won Williams’s first Grand Prix, at Silversone
in 1979 while Jones claimed Williams’s first driver’s and first constructor’s titles in 1980. Frank Williams had made his first forays into F1 in 1969, running a Brabham for
Piers Courage. Campaigns with De Tomaso, private March’s, with his own cars and ex-works Heskeths latterly in conjunction with Canadian-Austrian entrepreneur Walter
Wolf followed but it wasn’t until Williams teamed up with Head and started a new team all over again that Williams’s F1 fortunes really took off
✪ Williams has not led a Grand Prix since leading the British Grand Prix 18 months ago
✪ Have F1 cars suddenly become less reliable? In the first 3 races last year, 66 cars left the garage for the grid and 8 returned earlier than scheduled with mechanical failure.
So far in 2017, after 3 races 60 cars have left the garage for the grid and 14 have returned before the end of the race following mechanical failure. The mechanical failure
percentages are, 12.1% in 2016 compared with 23.3% in 2017, almost double. That said, only 1 car the McLaren-Honda of Stoffel Vandoorne has been prevented from
even starting a race (Bahrain). Last season in the first 3 events, 3 cars were prevented from making race starts due to mechanical failure
RUSSIAN GRAND PRIX
✪ Lewis Hamilton is the only former winner of the Russian Grand Prix racing here this weekend. Hamilton has won 2 of the 3 Russian Grand Prix to date. 2016 F1 World
Champion Nico Rosberg won the other (in 2016). Hamilton has led exactly 100 race laps in Russia to date, 53 laps in 2014 and 47 laps in 2015
✪ Mercedes is the only constructor to date to have taken a pole, won a race and led a race lap in Russia
✪ Valtteri Bottas has qualified for each of the 3 Russian Grand Prix to date in the top 3. Only Nico Rosberg betters Bottas’s record having started from the front row here in 2014, 2015 and 2016 including twice from pole.
Driver’s Championship standing
|
POS |
DRIVER |
Constructor |
POINTS |
|
1 |
Sebastian Vettel |
Ferrari |
68 |
|
2 |
Lewis Hamilton |
Mercedes |
61 |
|
3 |
Valtteri Bottas |
Mercedes |
38 |
|
4 |
Kimi Raikkonen |
Ferrari |
34 |
|
5 |
Max Verstappen |
Red Bull Racing-Tag Heuer |
25 |
|
6 |
Daniel Ricciardo |
Red Bull Racing-Tag Heuer |
22 |
|
7 |
Felipe Massa |
Williams-Mercedes |
16 |
|
8 |
Sergio Perez |
Force India-Mercedes |
14 |
|
9 |
Carlos Sainz |
Toro Rosso |
10 |
|
10 |
Romain Grosjean |
Haas-Ferrari |
4 |
|
11 |
Kevin Magnussen |
Haas-Ferrari |
4 |
|
12 |
Esteban Ocon |
Force India-Mercedes |
3 |
|
13 |
Nico Hulkenberg |
Renault |
2 |
|
14 |
Daniil Kvyat |
Toro Rosso |
2 |
|
15 |
Pascal Wehrlein |
Sauber-Ferrari |
0 |
|
16 |
Antonio Giovinazzi |
Sauber-Ferrari |
0 |
|
17 |
Jolyon Palmer |
Renault |
0 |
|
18 |
Stoffel Vandoorne |
McLaren-Honda |
0 |
|
19 |
Fernando Alonso |
McLaren-Honda |
0 |
|
20 |
Marcus Ericsson |
Sauber-Ferrari |
0 |
Constructor’s Championship standing
|
POS |
CONSTRUCTOR |
POINTS |
|
1 |
Ferrari |
102 |
|
2 |
Mercedes |
99 |
|
3 |
Red Bull/Renault |
47 |
|
4 |
Force India/Mercedes |
17 |
|
5 |
Williams/Mercedes |
16 |
|
6 |
Toro Rosso/Renault |
12 |
|
7 |
Haas/Ferrari |
8 |
|
8 |
Renault |
2 |
|
9 |
Sauber/Ferrari |
0 |
|
10 |
McLaren/Honda |
0 |
Driver’s penalty points:
|
Driver |
Penalty points |
|
Daniil Kvyat |
8 |
|
Jolyon Palmer |
7 |
|
Carlos Sainz |
7 |
|
Sebastian Vettel |
6 |
|
Nico Hulkenberg |
4 |
|
Pascal Wehrlein |
4 |
|
Kevin Magnussen |
4 |
|
Esteban Ocon |
4 |
|
Sergio Perez |
3 |
|
Romain Grosjean |
3 |
|
Valtteri Bottas |
2 |
|
Kimi Raikkonen |
2 |
|
Marcus Erricson |
2 |
|
Felipe Massa |
2 |
|
Lewis Hamilton |
2 |
|
Max Verstappen |
1 |