Lewis Hamilton claimed pole position for Formula 1’s inaugural Russian Grand Prix, denying Nico Rosberg and Valtteri Bottas at Sochi.

 

Hamilton outpaced Mercedes team-mate Rosberg by two tenths of a second, with the pair both completing three increasingly fast flyers on their sole Q3 run.

 

Although Rosberg was the faster on their first runs thanks to Hamilton’s conservative opening lap, Hamilton had the edge and took his seventh pole position of the season.

 

There was a very real threat to the dominance of the Silver Arrows, with Williams driver Bottas putting in a spectacular final lap to challenge for pole position.

 

The Finn set the fastest sector times of all in the first two sectors, but the rear stepped out at the final corner and he ran wide, which cost him any chance of beating the two Mercedes drivers and left him in third place.

 

McLaren pairing Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen continued the strong form for the team in fourth and sixth place, although Magnussen will take a gearbox-change penalty.

 

They sandwiched arguably the star of qualifying, Daniil Kvyat, who qualified a career-best fifth after a strong performance on home soil.

 

Daniel Ricciardo was seventh on a weekend of damage limitation for Red Bull, ahead of the two Ferraris of Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen

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Jean-Eric Vergne, in the second Toro Rosso, was slowest in Q3 and qualified 10th.

 

Reigning F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel was eliminated in Q2, his final lap only good enough to take 11th, 0.123s slower than Red Bull stablemate Vergne.

 

Vettel did not report any specific car problems, although he had been struggling with the balance of his Red Bull.

 

Just behind were the two Force Indias, with Nico Hulkenberg narrowly ahead of Sergio Perez but also set for a penalty.

 

Esteban Gutierrez won the intra-Sauber fight, over four tenths faster than team-mate Adrian Sutil, the Mexican doing a good job after sitting out Friday morning practice in favour of Sergey Sirotkin.

Lotus driver Romain Grosjean was slowest in Q2, ending up 16th.

 

Caterham driver Marcus Ericsson continued his recent run of good form with 17th, fastest of those to be eliminated in Q1.

 

The Swede’s final lap allowed him to jump ahead of Williams driver Felipe Massa, who ended up 18th.

 

Massa had looked set to qualify well, but a fuel pressure problem that the team did not have time to fix meant that he was down on power.

 

He did complete eight laps during Q1, but the hobbled car did not have the performance to get into the top 16.

 

Kamui Kobayashi, in the second Caterham, ended up just a tenth off Massa after improving by almost six tenths on his final run.

 

This was enough to put him ahead of Lotus driver Pastor Maldonado, who received an apology over the radio for what was described as a “shambles” after a problem delayed him.

He has to serve a five-place grid penalty anyway, a consequence of using his sixth engine during the Japanese GP weekend, so will drop to last.

 

Max Chilton in the sole Marussia was 21st, just over four tenths slower than Maldonado.

 

PROVISIONAL STARTING GRID:

Pos	Driver	Car	Time	Gap
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1m38.513s	–
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1m38.713s	0.200s
3	Valtteri Bottas	Williams/Mercedes	1m38.920s	0.407s
4	Jenson Button	McLaren/Mercedes	1m39.121s	0.608s
5	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m39.277s	0.764s
6	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull/Renault	1m39.635s	1.122s
7	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1m39.709s	1.196s
8	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1m39.771s	1.258s
9	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m40.020s	1.507s
10	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull/Renault	1m40.052s	–
11	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren/Mercedes	1m39.629s	–
12	Sergio Perez	Force India/Mercedes	1m40.163s	–
13	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber/Ferrari	1m40.536s	–
14	Adrian Sutil	Sauber/Ferrari	1m40.984s	–
15	Romain Grosjean	Lotus/Renault	1m41.397s	–
16	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham/Renault	1m42.648s	–
17	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India/Mercedes	1m40.058s	–
18	Felipe Massa	Williams/Mercedes	1m43.064s	–
19	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham/Renault	1m43.166s	–
20	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus/Renault	1m43.205s	–
21	Max Chilton	Marussia/Ferrari	1m43.649s	–

** Magnussen, Hulkenberg and Maldonado have had five-place penalties applied