Nico Rosberg retires from Russian Federation GP, hitting title hopes

Hamilton’s response was 1m 37.433s, leaving him a relatively distant second.

At the finish, there was 0.3sec between them on the timesheets with Valtteri Bottas putting in a smart lap in his Williams to take the third spot on the grid ahead of Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari.

Rosberg started on pole last time out in Japan but was out-muscled by his team-mate through turns one and two. (The gap to Hamilton) is a lot of points.

The fight for the lead on the first lap between Hamilton and Rosberg was nearly immediately curtailed by a first-lap incident when Nico Hulkenberg’s Force India span, collecting the Sauber of Marcus Ericsson.

But Alonso was given a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits, promoting Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen to 10th.

One man in little mood for celebration however was Rosberg after his dreams of catching Hamilton all but ended when he retired on lap seven with a throttle issue.

Having started behind his Mercedes teammate on the grid, Hamilton was left to coast to victory and looks set for a successful defence of his driver’s crown, holding a 66-point lead with just 100 points left to race fo. ” Rosberg refuses to concede the title”.

“It makes the race every more exciting”.

“It’s unbelievable for something like that to happen”, Rosberg told Sky Sports. It is a bit of a worry especially as the pedal was coming more and more in my direction and in the end I had to lift my complete leg off the pedal to come off the throttle.

” Lotus’ Romain Grosjean relives his heavy lap-13 crash at turn three”.

“We lost the power on the auto so we don’t know”, his team replied. Bottas’ expletive remarks on the team-radio said it all.

The marshals then spent the next 10 minutes repairing the damage to the barriers at turn three and sweeping the debris off the track. I have done plenty of laps with my tyres and had massive degradation on my front tyres. His manager announced that Sainz was doing “perfectly”.

Vettel was second, moving above Rosberg into second in the drivers’ standings, though if Hamilton outscores Vettel by nine points and Rosberg by two in America he will be champion.

Vettel’s strong finish and Rosberg’s exit meant champions Mercedes were unable to wrap up another constructors title triumph.

There was joy for Russia’s Daniil Kvyat, too, who finished sixth and picked up eight points in the process.

The British driver had nothing but good things to say about the race and indeed the country in which it has been hosted, as he cruised to another win and a nigh-on insurmountable championship lead in Sochi on Sunday afternoon.

The final DNF went to Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz, who made a super-brave return to racing after his 46g shunt in FP3. I overtook him and after that, or maybe even before, he started to have a few problems. Overall, I am very happy and it is great for the team.

It has become something of a habit for teams to pretend they have made no special preparations, not wanting to count any unhatched chickens, only to don celebratory T-shirts within seconds of taking the title. I just come back, I forget the last week and learn from it.

“I am just enjoying being on pole at the moment”. “And I am sure I can do it in this brilliant vehicle”.