The start is going to be crucial today. Can Charles Leclerc hold off the attacks from those around him?

Image source, .

Jeremiah Kariuki: Have a feeling this is the race where Mercedes come back with their effective strategies. Last couple of races, they have thrown the strategy dice, but has not landed in their favour. Hamilton could take this one.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

Image source, Reuters

Lewis Hamilton says he feels some of his recent qualifying laps have been “pole-worthy”.

He added: “Please don’t write that the wrong way. Pole-worthy in terms of putting the perfect lap together. I feel like each time I’m getting as close to that as possible and then you finish the lap and it’s quite a long way off pole but it feels like quite an achievement to get in between the two Ferraris who have a bit of a delta to us at the moment.”

It looked that way, too, with him 0.6secs ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas, whose second run was aborted after an error in Turn 13.

Expecting to be slower than Ferrari, Mercedes have taken a gamble on strategy - “we had to try something,” as Hamilton put it - and will start on the mediums. That means less grip off the line, but some options around the pit stops.

“From our calculations,” Bottas said. “If we had been on the front row, no way to keep those positions down to Turn One. We can be aggressive and go for the undercut or go long. it gives us a bit more flexibility than Ferrari have.”

Hamilton added: “It is about strategy, which is why we are on a different tyre and I hope that we can utilise that and keep the pressure on. If you’ve seen the couple of races we’ve had we’ve been right with them but I’m hoping we can really give them a good fight.”

A home race for Daniil Kvyat. At least he will have some overtaking opportunities as he's on the back row.

Not too long to wait...

Kayleigh: Would absolutely love a Bottas win. Excited to see what Max can do from 9th on the grid. And as always, hope for points for both McLarens too

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

Image source, EPA

Charles Leclerc and Ferrari are on a roll, and for Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes, as they seek to close off the championship, it is a good job the red cars were so off-colour in the first half of the season.

After two wins and poles on high-speed Spa and Monza, a repeat performance at low-speed Singapore, Ferrari have come to medium-speed Sochi and done it again - at least the first part.

That man Leclerc took his fourth pole in a row, the ninth consecutive time he has out-qualified team-mate Sebastian Vettel, with a performance that, on paper, signifies that Ferrari will be the team to beat for the rest of the season. In Russia, though, perhaps more than anywhere else, that’s just the start of the job.

The run down to the first corner is long, long, long. And with slipstreaming so powerful, it’s anyone’s guess who ends up ahead at the first corner on lap one. After that, there are divergent tyre strategies to play out. The race may not be thrill-a-minute, but intrigue aplenty seems likely.”

So how did Charles Leclerc get himself on to pole? Like this...

Just tuning in?

The F1 commentary team discuss how Charles Leclerc took pole position yesterday, and what position Red Bull are in with their driver programme?

Listen to the qualifying podcast.

Image source, Getty Images

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

Image source, Reuters

Charles Leclerc’s first two wins this season came after race-long pressure from the Mercedes - of Lewis Hamilton in Spa and of both the world champion and Bottas in Monza.

Generally, the Mercedes has had better race pace, but Leclerc is confident this time that Ferrari are in better shape, after what he said were strong race runs in Friday practice.

Leclerc’s big concern will be preventing team-mate Sebastian Vettel slipstreaming past on the run from the start.

After the disappointment of Singapore, where Ferrari caught themselves out by apparently under-cutting Vettel past Leclerc rather than just Hamilton, Leclerc will be iron-determined not to let his team-mate beat him again.

As he put it on Thursday: “People don’t realise just how much I want to win.”

A variety of penalties for the Red Bull and Toro Rosso drivers gives us a bit of a jumbled up grid.

Image source, .

As always we want your thoughts on all the action. What's going to happen today? What do you want to happen?

Tweet us using the hashtag #bbcf1

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

Image source, Getty Images

Charles Leclerc produced another spectacular performance to take pole position for the Russian Grand Prix.

The 21-year-old took his fourth pole in a row for Ferrari as Lewis Hamilton pipped Leclerc's team-mate Sebastian Vettel to second, 0.402secs adrift of Leclerc.

Hamilton beat Vettel by just 0.023secs with Red Bull's Max Verstappen fourth ahead of Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas.

Verstappen has a five-place grid penalty and will drop down to ninth on the grid as McLaren's Carlos Sainz was sixth.

Hello and welcome along to BBC Sport's live text commentary for the Russian Grand Prix.

I'm Michael Emons and thanks for joining us. The race gets going a bit earlier than normal, at 12:10 BST, and as always we have live radio commentary from our excellent 5 Live team.

First up a quick look at what happened yesterday.

Four times in a row Charles Leclerc has now got himself into pole position. He would've had three consecutive wins as well if it hadn't been for a strategy call last week that benefited his team-mate Sebastian Vettel.

Can Leclerc win again today, will team orders play a part, can Lewis Hamilton take the win? Let's find out.

Image source, Getty Images