Hamilton wins, Bottas 2nd, Leclerc 3rd
Vettel out of race after stopping on track
Vettel overtook Leclerc at start, German ignored team orders to give lead back
Grosjean, Ricciardo, Russell, Kubica out
Great to see a smiling Alex Albon after his travails yesterday.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner says he should forget qualifying and concentrate on the race.
Looks like he has taken that advice.
Image source, ReutersA reminder of how we start. Look out for early charges from the Red Bull two - Max Verstappen in ninth and Alexander Albon, who starts from the pits.
Image source, .Get off the track!
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Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer
Right, strategy. It’s a one-stop - even more so than other races, because of the low-degradation at Russia.
The fastest strategy is predicted to be Ferrari’s of starting on the soft and then probably switching to the hard to the end (Charles Leclerc said there was not much difference between the soft and medium and the degradation graphs bear him out; hence the hard for the second stint).
But Mercedes’ strategy of medium and then hard is predicted to be very similar. None of the top teams have any new soft tyres for the race.
A pit stop is 24 seconds under racing conditions, 15 under safety car, of which the historic possibility is 80%.
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Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer
Image source, Getty ImagesFor the second time in a row, Carlos Sainz lines up best of the rest in the McLaren, and it was a result neither he nor the team expected after a difficult Friday.
“I’m very happy,” Sainz said. “P6 with such a good lap, a really good lap. I start P5 and that is the best we could do. It has been a tricky weekend up until now. We couldn’t find the balance and we tried some bits on the car that didn’t really work. It is unexpected. This morning the car felt better but not really special.
"It just shows the great job the engineers have done to put the car together and the lap felt really special. After being best of the rest in Singapore, it feels like I am getting my groove in qualifying.”
But the midfield is too tight - Sainz was ahead of the Renault of Nico Hulkenberg by mere fractions - and the race result is anyone’s guess.
“It’s not going to be easy,” he said. "Our race pace yesterday was dreadful. I mean, I have never been so slow on race pace this season. I am not expecting anything special but today we have a very different car than Friday and hopefully we can pick up from that.”
Sorry for anyone hoping for a wet one. The sun is shining in Sochi.
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Christian Horner, the Red Bull boss, is on the grid. He says: "We have got to get a good start. You can overtake here, the two DRS straights are powerful so were going to try and get on the back of the Ferraris and Mercedes as quick as we can."
Asked on Alexander Albon's difficult weekend after crashing in qualifying, he says: "Forget yesterday, today is a new day. I still think he can be top six by the end of the day."
Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer
Image source, Getty ImagesSome more politics. Discussions over the big rule changes planned for 2021 continue, with only four weeks to go until the deadline on which they need to be published.
The stand-off between the big teams and F1 continues, with Ferrari leading the way in questioning whether it is a wise idea to make so many changes at once, and Mercedes, Red Bull and Renault happy to let them do it because it suits them, too.
There has already been one big win for the ‘rebels’ this weekend, with the announcement that F1 has abandoned plans for a standard braking system in 2021.
And the big weapon in Ferrari’s armoury is that they have a veto over any rule changes, so if a suitable compromise cannot be reached, Ferrari could always use it to keep things as they are.
It has been a possibility since the beginning, but as the deadline approaches, talk of it being used has grown louder and louder. In a media session on Friday, team boss Mattia Binotto was asked about it.
“First, we have the veto right and it would be a shame to use it,” he said. “That is not the intention or what we are looking for. More important is to be very constructive and we still have a months’ time to address the fundamentals. If the regulations are not satisfactory by the end of October I don't think it will be a drama because we still have time to evolve and improve. There are a few things important to us - first is the degree of freedom, especially on aerodynamics, which we believe is too prescriptive, degree of freedom on other sides of the car. These are the key points where we can make a different choice to what has been achieved so far. Again, we're more focused on trying to collaborate and address what we believe is fundamental rather than say, ‘We've got the veto right.’”
It may have been couched in polite, political language, but the potential threat was very clear.
Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel may have a pole each here, but it's Mercedes who bring home the trophies and points.
In 2017, Bottas started behind Vettel in third and got a better start, overtaking him before the first corner. The Finn led the race and took his first ever Formula 1 victory.
Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer
Image source, Getty ImagesSome politics. You may remember that the top drivers were extremely critical of plans by Formula 1 to run a small number of reverse-grid races instead of qualifying next season as an experiment with ways to make the sport more appealing.
In Sochi, F1 boss Chase Carey and sporting boss Ross Brawn met with the drivers to listen to their concerns.
The drivers feel that the idea could have serious unintended consequences, and Valtteri Bottas said: “We had a good chat with Ross and Chase and we asked with drivers to be talked to about it, before they make decisions and they agreed to talk to us.”
The drivers were especially frustrated because they had earlier this year been invited into a series of meetings on rule changes, and yet this one came out of the blue, with no foresight for them.
Will the bosses change anything as a result of listening to the drivers this weekend? That’s another matter.
Image source, ReutersDaniil Kvyat is milking the applause from his home crowd early after suffering a litany of mechanical problems in practice.
The Russian Toro Rosso driver was always going to start from the back of the grid due to an engine penalty, but he failed to post a lap time in qualifying and was forced to pull out of two of the three free practice sessions with engine trouble.
Stranger things have happened, though, maybe race day is when it will all come good for Kvyat.
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Two for Rosberg, and two for Ferrari now. Charles Leclerc joins the list for Russia pole sitters, where Mercedes have dominated since 2014.
Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer
Image source, F1Some more from Alexander Albon, who says: “I think it's fair to say all weekend I haven't been that quick, but it was getting better. In qualifying we started to really understand the car and the pace was actually not too bad - although that's hard to say when you only do half a lap. The feeling was there.”
It was no ideal timing, with Red Bull yet to make a decision as to whether he or Pierre Gasly gets the second seat alongside Verstappen in 2020, but Albon said: “I wouldn't say I'm under pressure for the seat, to me it's just a chance more than anything else. Making a mistake is not helpful, just in terms of making a mistake, but yeah, I'm more disappointed in the result of crashing more than anything else.”
Albon starts from the pit lane after a change of floor, and the fitting of a new turbo, MGU-H and MGU-K and a new gearbox.
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Simon Farrow: Those Ferraris look far too quick for anything but one of their cars winning. The fight for 3rd should be good though and always the real fun is in the midfield. Hopefully @LandoNorris, external gets a fair few points today.
This is how it stands in the title race, with Hamilton looking comfortable with a 65-point advantage.
If he wins today and Bottas has a shocker then it could all be decided next time out in Japan in a fortnight's time.
Image source, .Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer
Image source, Getty ImagesRed Bull looked competitive on Friday, but it seems they were out of sync on engine mode because they dropped right back on Saturday, and as Max Verstappen put it: “Yesterday, we were at the same pace on the straight and today we lose over a second.”
The Dutchman did a good job to beat Valtteri Bottas’s Mercedes and end up fourth fastest but drops to ninth with his five-place grid penalty for excessive engine usage.
Team-mate Alexander Albon has had a torrid weekend. He has looked off the pace throughout, and then he threw it off at Turn 13 on his first qualifying run and crashed, so he starts from the back.
“I got caught out a bit with the wind,” Albon said. "It was tricky out there, and yeah, just went in a bit deep. I thought I'd get away with it, or else I'd have aborted the corner and gone to the escape road. But I kind of tried to stay on, keep the corner let's say, and yeah, just lost the rear. With a tailwind through there, it's not easy and the wall's very close on the exit. Unfortunately that was that.