Hamilton moves closer to the title as Perez stars

Star of the race

Sergio Perez deserved a little luck as he claimed his and Force India's first podium at the Russian Grand Prix since Bahrain last year. It was a fantastic drive of which Perez has become quite renowned, converting an unconventional strategy into a brilliant result.

The Mexican was one of the drivers to pit under the second safety car which had come out to remove the wreckage of Romain Grosjean's Lotus following a rather dramatic accident. The top eight or so cars stayed out while Perez dived in for fresh rubber after running as high as sixth.

With well over half the race to go he settled down to make his tyres last the distance. As the front runners pitted, Perez moved up the order. Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull was on a similar strategy but neither could hold off a charging Sebastian Vettel.

However, the battling Finn's of Williams' Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen proved easier to keep behind as they squabbled for position. Eventually they found their way past Ricciardo and started to harry Perez, but this was a podium position, Perez wasn't just going to move over. Ricciardo retired later with a suspension issue.

Perez kept them behind but a lap from the end Williams told Bottas to turn everything up on the engine, he went for a gap and pushed Perez wide, Kimi immediately followed through and was on the Williams' tail. There was nothing he could do, the tyres were finished.

Into the last lap Perez watched as the Williams and Ferrari pulled away, but Kimi was challenging. An improbable closing gap became so tempting, the Ferrari went for it, and smashed into the side of Bottas, pushing the Williams out and damaging the red car. Kimi would limp home 5th but was later penalised with a 30 second penalty dropping him to eighth.

Perez was back into third place, disappointment turned to joy once more, Force India were delighted. It was another demonstration of Perez maximising an unexpected opportunity. He's really shone this year, despite the continual hype around his team mate Nico Hulkenberg who spun out at the first corner and collected Marcus Ericsson's Sauber to force both into retirement bringing out the first safety car.

As I've written before Perez's performances have made people question just how good Hulkenberg is, but I find that unfair, Perez is a very good driver in his own right and both deserve a crack at a winning car one day.

The winner

Lewis Hamilton lost out to pole position to his Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg who was on it all weekend in Sochi. At the start, Lewis got alongside Nico but had to settle for second before the first corner accident brought out the first safety car. 

It looked like finally we were going to have a great tussle for victory between the Mercedes drivers, but sadly for the race Rosberg retired shortly after the restart due to a throttle problem. It left Hamilton away and clear never to be troubled again as he put on a demonstration run to the chequered flag.

His win and Kimi's demotion meant Mercedes clinched their second consecutive constructors championship with four races still to run. 

The battles

The Ferrari's battling was quite nice but Vettel managed to get by Kimi fairly easily in the end. Bottas started well but was taken over by Vettel during the pit stops. While the lead Ferrari took second to keep his title hopes dimly lit, Bottas was embroiled in a great fight with Kimi which as I've said, ended in Bottas exclaiming 'What the **** was he doing?'

The Toro Rosso's were once again a source of entertainment as they came back from various problems. Max Verstappen suffered a puncture after getting caught up in the Hulkenberg incident and fought back but could only manage 11th which became 10th after a penalty to Fernando Alonso for exceeding track limits. His team mate Carlos Sainz put in a heroic drive despite failing to finish because of brake problems.

He started last on the grid after a huge 46g impact in third practice sent him to hospital resulting in him missing qualifying. He was ok to race though and stormed through to be running as high as seventh before his brakes hurt enough.

The McLaren's of Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso finished 9th and 10th (which became 11th) after the high number of retirements, they were still lacking top end speed and it was painfully noticeable. When the recovering Felipe Massa in the Williams came up to the back of Alonso, the team radioed to tell him he was racing Massa to which he replied 'you have a good sense of humour'. After the season he's had, to lose a point sums his season up as he celebrated his 250th Grand Prix.

Felipe Massa had a terrible qualifying to only line up 15th while Bottas was third. Massa mounted a comeback, going for a long first stint on soft tyres before switching to the super soft rubber and charging through, taking advantage of his team mates demise to end up a fine fourth. Behind him Russian home hero Daniil Kvyat was involved in some good dicing, Felipe Nasr rose up from 13th on the grid to a great 6th place and Pastor Maldonado had an uncharacteristically quiet drive to 7th, all finishing positions one up thanks to Kimi's penalty.

Things of note

The European Union Competitions commission has been notified of two complaints from Sauber and Force India regarding Formula 1's governance and inequitable distribution of funds to the teams. I truly hope something comes of this as the way money is distributed and the way the sport is run in general is completely unfair to the small teams in particular, not to mention the circuits as well.

Formula 1 and the teams need to think of the greater good now, the sport, and not just themselves. It needs someone to step in with a clean sheet of paper and start again with a new model and get rid of this money grabbing attitude from CVC, the private equity firm that owns the sports commercial rights.

CVC need to go, they have sucked everything they can from the sport and have left it hanging on the edge with viewing figures down, therefore sponsors payments are decreasing and teams are struggling and traditional circuits are being squeezed out for government backed new ones which have no tradition and no audience just for an extra dollar. 

Of course the TV figures lead people to believe the sport is struggling as a product, but when you sell the rights to pay TV broadcasters, what do you expect? It's short term monetary gain but the actual viewer base is diminished and therefore sponsors get less exposure. 

The product is fine, and nothing too bad that a few small tweaks wouldn't cure. An overhaul of the weekend format is pointless, there's nothing wrong with it. Having qualifying races or reverse grids sound exciting, but it's then less of a sport and more of an entertainment product, it loses it's worth as a sport.

You can't always have last race title deciders, sometimes a team and driver will just be a step ahead and there's nothing wrong with that, it's sport, it's up to the other teams to do better and try and beat the best. What would help with that of course is a more even distribution of funds that would allow 11 teams to compete on a more even keel. With $1.8billion income you'd think that would be easy wouldn't you? Hopefully the EU Competition commission will act, but even if they do it could be years before anything comes of it.

In other news, Button has agreed to race on for McLaren, citing miscommunication with the team for why he was contemplating retirement. It's good for Button but it does leave McLaren juniors Kevin Magnussen and new GP2 champion Stoffel Vandoorne with nowhere to go. Both are exciting talents and deserve a seat somewhere. Hopefully something will be found, maybe even at McLaren as you get the sense that Alonso is getting increasingly fed up, although he probably will stay.

Red Bull look like they are going to have to beg Renault's forgiveness as Ferrari look to have rejected a deal to supply them with power units for 2016. After all the acrimony between Red Bull and Renault it's going to be a hard sell, but the sport can't afford to just let two teams disappear. I'm sure something will happen. Meanwhile Renault have still yet to seal the deal on taking over Lotus. And Finally, Pirelli will remain as the sports sole tyre supplier as they fend off Michelin to win the next three year contract starting in 2017.


The title chase

Hamilton needs to score 11 points more than Vettel and 2 more than Rosberg at the next race in the USA to wrap up his third world championship. He's taken two wins there in the past three years so odds are on the pretence of a title fight will finally be over. Hamilton has dominated pretty much from the first race and this title will be nothing more than he deserves. 

Rosberg has fallen short all year, yes his retirement in Russia has hurt him, but even then he hasn't been in the hunt for some time. The fact Vettel is now ahead of him in a car which although much improved over 2014 is not a match for a Mercedes shows he hasn't been able match Hamilton at all this year. It also demonstrates just how well Vettel has returned to form after his struggles last season.

It's too early to declare it completely over, but I'm pretty sure the championship trophy is sitting there waiting for the engraver to start cutting Hamilton's name once again.

all photos taken from auto-motor-und-sport.de