Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg extended his world drivers championship lead over team mate Lewis Hamilton by another seven points taking his seventh consecutive victory at the Russian Grand Prix.
When it comes to Rosberg, there really is nothing to write, he got off the line first, reached turn 2 first and took the chequered flag first, there’s the whole race story for Rosberg. Hamilton had some luck with the first quarter lap carnage to jump from 10th to fifth place by turn 4 and later used his superior car to move past Massa, Raikkonen and Bottas to eventually close to within 8 seconds of team mate Rosberg before having to cool his pace due to a water pressure issue, sending the conspiracy nuts into a frenzy.
The start itself was pretty frenetic with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel making a good start to be challenging for firth place into turn 2; but Daniil Kvyat straight up drove into the back of Vettel, pushing him into Ricciardo causing a chain reaction with multiple contacts to the left of the incident. Kvyat was not done, he drove into the back of Vettel a second time in turn 3, pitching the German into the barrier and out of the race.
The race was far from a classic, other than the first 3 corners on lap one, the race was fairly unremarkable, we expect Hamilton is a class leading car to rise to the front, we see it race after race when a Mercedes start further back than the first few rows. But standout performances were Fernando Alonso in a McLaren taking the chequered flag in sixth place, Kevin Magnussen in the Renault claiming seventh place from 17th on the grid and another points finish for Romain Grosjean and HAAS taking 8th place.
I am really struggling to get into F1 this season because we know that a Mercedes 1-2 is likely 8/10 times, don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of action in the midfield, but knowing that a Mercedes driver will be world champion and the Mercedes team will be constructors champion before a wheel is turned in anger, makes the whole season mute in my view, I want to see 3, 4 or 5 way battles for the titles.
With Ferrari’s reliability issues and bad luck, the slight hope of the Prancing Horse mounting a serious challenge has dwindled to almost nothing, I watch the race on the DVR because I don’t have the incentive to get up at 7am to watch it live and then I only pay half attention as I am working on something on my laptop as I watch the race. I feel that Formula 1 has become a very sad reflection of it’s former self.
I find myself agreeing with you more and more where the “fun” of F1 has been taken from us. I do get up early, only because I refuse to give up on Ferrari and the possibility that Vettel and Kimi can challenge, one race at a time, as it would seem the season has already been decided.