F1 Russian Grand Prix results: Lewis Hamilton moves closer to championship with victory

Sights from the F1 Russian Grand Prix Sunday Sept. 29, 2019

Lewis Hamilton won the Formula 1 Russian Grand Prix from Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas after Ferrari imploded, ending a three-race run of Ferrari victories.

Mercedes continued its perfect run of wins in Russia, bouncing back from a tough run of three races following the summer break, but had it not been for a fortunately time safety car it could have been a completely different result.

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel made perfect use of the tow from pole sitter and teammate Charles Leclerc to gain the lead from third place on the grid. Lewis Hamilton had started second with his car angled to duck into the tow, but Vettel stole the gap and Hamilton almost lost out to the McLaren of Carlos Sainz.

The race entered a safety car period ahead of the end of lap 1. A simple pinch with Daniel Ricciardo on the inside of Antonio Giovinazzi and Romain Grosjean sent Ricciardo and Grosjean spinning. Grosjean hit the wall and was knocked out of the race.

When the race resumed, the Ferrari team radio became extremely tense. In Singapore, Leclerc believed that he had lost the race due to Vettel, who was second at the time, being gifted the better of the two strategies, and history was repeating itself in Russia.

It quickly became apparent that Leclerc had not defended from Vettel into turn 2 due to a pre-arranged plan. It also was made obvious that phase two of the plan was that Vettel would allow Leclerc back through the redress the situation. The problem came when Vettel, just as he did in the infamous Multi 21 incident with Red Bull and then teammate Mark Webber in Malaysia 2013, refused to obey team orders.

Leclerc’s tires suffered in the dirty air behind Vettel and this then allowed the German to pull out a three-second lead but, on the Ferrari pit wall, bosses were tearing their hair out.

Ferrari thought they had fixed the situation by pitting Leclerc several laps earlier than Vettel. When they did actually pit Vettel, the positions were duly switched but, thinking things were now as they should be, Ferrari’s race then got turned upside down.

Vettel retired on his first lap out of the pits, his MGU-K failing and forcing the retirement, and this brought about the Virtual Safety Car. Mercedes pitted both cars under this and, with the net loss for the stop halving, Hamilton managing to jump Leclerc.

A brake failure for George Russell meant that the virtual safety car period became a full Safety Car, and Ferrari had no option but to pit Leclerc to fit a used set of soft tires. This dropped him behind Valtteri Bottas into third, but he now had equal rubber to fight with.

Leclerc fought as hard as he could after the race resumed, but he was unable to keep up with the Mercedes.

In the end, Hamilton was able to cross the line with a comfortable 3.8-second advantage over Bottas and Leclerc to put himself almost within touching distance of a sixth world title. Hamilton leads Bottas by 73 points and third-place Leclerc by 107 points with just five races remaining.

With just 130 points possible, Hamilton can eliminate Leclerc from championship contention as early as the next race — Oct. 13 in Japan.

“Firstly, just an incredible job from all of the guys here this weekend,” said Hamilton. “Not giving up, trying new things, pushing forwards, always trying to be innovative and just never giving up. That makes me incredibly inspired. It’s just incredible having this result today considering how quick they (Ferrari) were at the start. Just keeping up with them was an incredibly hard task.

“As I said, we haven’t given up, we keep on pushing and the car was just fantastic today.”

Asked about whether he is thinking more about individual Grand Prix results or the larger picture of the title, Hamilton added, “Honestly, every season I try not to think too much about the championship and just one race at a time, one step at a time, and I think that’s what we collectively have been working on.

“Obviously, it gets harder and harder as the season goes on, but just one step at a time. One foot in front of the other. We don’t want to stumble, but f course, we’ve got to keep putting performances like this in and I know the bosses back in Stuttgart will be super happy with today.”

Having voiced his complaints publicly after the Singapore Grand Prix, Leclerc had vowed to keep a lid on his emotions in future interviews in the immediate aftermath of races.

“At least we are quite consistent,” said Leclerc. “It is good to be back on the podium. It’s a shame for the team to not have the second car up her, but on our side it was an OK race. Mercedes are still very quick in the race runs, a lot quicker than in qualifying, so we need to work on that, to try and understand and improve that for the next races.”

Pushed on the topic of the pre-race plan between the Ferrari drivers, Leclerc said, “I will always trust the team, but the tactic was me giving the slipstream to be one-two at the end of the straight which happened, but then I don’t know. I need to speak with the team to know better the situation.”

Formula 1 Russian Grand Prix – Results

Race Results

Pos.

Driver

Constructor

Race Time

Points

Lewis Hamilton

Mercedes-AMG Petronas

25 (+1)

Valtteri Bottas

Mercedes-AMG Petronas

+3.829

Charles Leclerc

Scuderia Ferrari

+5.212

Max Verstappen

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing

+14.210

Alexander Albon

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing

+38.348

Carlos Sainz

McLaren F1 Team

+45.889

Sergio Perez

SportPesa Racing Point F1 Team

+48.728

Lando Norris

McLaren F1 Team

+57.749

Kevin Magnussen

Rich Energy Haas F1 Team

+58.779

Nico Hulkenberg

Renault F1 Team

+59.841

Lance Stroll

SportPesa Racing Point F1 Team

+1:00.821

Daniil Kvyat

Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda

+1:02.496

Kimi Raikkonen

Alfa Romeo Racing

+1:08.910

Pierre Gasly

Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda

+1:10.076

Antonio Giovinazzi

Alfa Romeo Racing

+1:13.346

Robert Kubica

ROKiT Williams Racing

DNF

George Russell

ROKiT Williams Racing

DNF

Sebastian Vettel

Scuderia Ferrari

DNF

Daniel Ricciardo

Renault F1 Team

DNF

Romain Grosjean

Rich Energy Haas F1 Team

DNF

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