Another race, another win - the Nico Rosberg juggernaut rolled on in Russia. And what a significant victory it was too…
- Nico Rosberg captured his fourth win of the season and his seventh victory in succession at Sochi on Sunday, and he did it in style with the first ‘Grand Slam’ of his career (pole position, fastest lap and race victory with every lap led).
- Rosberg is the 24th driver in history to score a Grand Slam. Jim Clark has the most with eight, whilst Vettel has the most of the current grid with four.
- Rosberg is also just the fourth driver in history - after Alberto Ascari, Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel - to win seven races in a row. Vettel holds the record with nine consecutive victories (set in 2013). If Rosberg were to equal that, he’d do it at his adopted home race in Monaco…
- Another interesting footnote to Rosberg’s seventh straight win is that he now has won more races consecutively than his world champion father Keke Rosberg managed in his entire F1 career.
Race winner Nico Rosberg (GER) Mercedes AMG F1 celebrates with his mechanics in parc ferme at Formula One World Championship, Rd4, Russian Grand Prix, Race, Sochi Autodrom, Sochi, Krasnodar Krai, Russia, Sunday 1 May 2016. © Sutton Motorsport Images
- Will Nico join his father as a world champion in 2016? The odds are looking better and better - only Nigel Mansell, Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher (twice) have won the opening four races of a season, and all of them went on to win the title in the same year.
- With their tenth straight win - dating back to Japan last year - Mercedes are now just one win short of McLaren’s record for consecutive wins, set in 1988.
- Hamilton’s second place finish meanwhile ensured the Silver Arrows of a 30th one-two finish in F1. It was the fourth time in Hamilton’s career that he has secured a podium finish after starting from tenth or lower.
The car of race retiree Sebastian Vettel (GER) Ferrari SF16-H is recovered at Formula One World Championship, Rd4, Russian Grand Prix, Race, Sochi Autodrom, Sochi, Krasnodar Krai, Russia, Sunday 1 May 2016. © Sutton Motorsport Images
- For Ferrari it was a very mixed day: on the one hand Raikkonen scored the team’s 700th Grand Prix podium. On the other, Sebastian Vettel failed to reach the chequered flag for the second time this season. It’s worth noting that prior to 2016 the German hadn’t been eliminated on or before the first lap since the 2011 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix…
- A curious footnote to Raikkonen’s podium - it was the first the Iceman has scored since the 2013 Korean Grand Prix that wasn’t in a night or twilight race.
- Behind Raikkonen, Williams maintained their record of getting both cars home in the points – something that only Mercedes can match in 2016.
Fernando Alonso (ESP) McLaren MP4-31 at Formula One World Championship, Rd4, Russian Grand Prix, Race, Sochi Autodrom, Sochi, Krasnodar Krai, Russia, Sunday 1 May 2016. © Sutton Motorsport Images
- Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button meanwhile ensured that McLaren got their first double points score since last year’s race in Hungary as they picked up their first top ten finishes of the season.
- Kevin Magnussen was another driver who picked up his first points of the year with a battling run to seventh. That gave Renault their first points as a fully-fledged manufacturer since the 2010 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Coincidentally it was Magnussen’s best Grand Prix finish since the 2014 race in Sochi when he was fifth.
- For the second year in a row in Russia, Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg was eliminated on the first lap at Turn 2.
- And finally, Romain Grosjean scored his third points finish in four races for the American Haas squad. Fittingly the Frenchman did it on the same day that he surpassed US racing legend Dan Gurney’s 86 career starts. Will Grosjean one day emulate Gurney’s success and win, as he did, in an American owned car?
