Bottas claims maiden Formula 1 win in Russia
Valtteri Bottas claimed his maiden Formula 1 win after a closely fought battle with Sebastian Vettel in the final stages of the Russian Grand Prix.
With an excellent getaway from the grid, Bottas jumped into the lead from the Ferrari’s of Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen, Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton couldn’t follow through and was stuck in fourth place.
After a first lap safety car due to the incident between Romain Grosjean and Jolyon Palmer, Bottas caught the rest of the field napping and drove away from the pack in the opening racing laps of the race.
As the first stint of the race panned out, Bottas continued to stretch his advantage over Vettel, even through the pit stop phase of the race, Ferrari had no answer for the pace of the Mercedes.
As Ferrari attempted their alternate strategy to help Vettel against Bottas by leaving him out an extra eight laps, it appeared the Scuderia tried to give the German fresher tyres for the end of the race to try and hunt down Bottas’ Mercedes.
In the final laps, Vettel continued to close the gap to Bottas, but Mercedes had enough in hand to prevent Vettel from taking his third win of the season.
Lewis Hamilton struggled throughout the race for speed and ended up finishing down in fourth position, this leaves the Briton now 13 points behind Vettel in the drivers’ championship.
Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo had a problem on lap five of 52 where his right rear brake had caught fire, unfortunately for him, the team had to retire the car a lap later.
Max Verstappen nearly issues early on as his RB13 had a water leak which meant a change of power units overnight, however further leaks meant late repairs before the pitlane opened before the race, but the Dutchman did make the start of the race finishing in fifth place.
Continued problems with the Honda power unit meant that Fernando Alonso’s McLaren suffered hybrid system issues, this prevented him from taking the start causing a second formation lap.