2014 Russian Grand Prix

Championship standings

Hamilton leads the Drivers’ Championship by ten points over Rosberg heading into Russia. Ricciardo holds third, a distant 60 points further back.

Previous race

The Japanese Grand Prix was run in heavy rain from Typhoon Phanfone and ended under red flag conditions after a serious accident involving Jules Bianchi. Hamilton won from Rosberg, with Vettel third. The race was brought to a halt on lap 46 — with the result taken from the end of lap 44 — after Bianchi lost control of his Marussia at the Dunlop Curve on lap 43 and collided with a tractor crane that was recovering Sutil’s car under double yellow flags. Bianchi sustained severe head injuries and was taken by ambulance to Mie Prefectural General Medical Center in Yokkaichi, where he underwent emergency surgery. He remains in critical condition. The FIA has announced a ten-person panel to investigate the accident.

Between-race developments

In tribute to the critically injured Bianchi, Marussia have entered a single car this weekend. They built up Bianchi’s car in his side of the garage with his livery on the walls. All drivers wear a sticker reading “Tous avec Jules #17” on their helmets; a one-minute silence will be held on the grid before the race. Marussia have adopted a #JB17 livery on Chilton’s car for the weekend. Alexander Rossi was named as Bianchi’s replacement driver but, out of respect, the entry was withdrawn.

Pastor Maldonado received a ten-place grid penalty at the Japanese Grand Prix for exceeding his engine component quota, but qualified seventeenth — meaning only five of those places could be served in Japan. The remaining five-place penalty carries over to this race automatically.

Track changes

The Russian Grand Prix makes its World Championship debut at the Sochi Autodrom — the first Russian Grand Prix in over a century, and the first to be staged as part of the Formula One World Championship. The circuit is built on the site of the 2014 Winter Olympic Park and runs through a mix of dedicated sections and roads used for the Games. The International Olympic Committee had initially reserved the power to delay the event until 2015 if circuit construction disrupted Olympic preparations, but this proved unnecessary.

Tyre choices

Pirelli brings the white-banded medium compound as the prime and the yellow-banded soft as the option, chosen to cope with the brand-new asphalt and high lateral loads — particularly through turn four, an elongated constant-radius corner with estimated speeds of 200 km/h, the longest corner of the 2014 calendar.

Practice

Rosberg led FP1, seven-hundredths of a second ahead of Hamilton. Bottas was limited to very few laps after tyre blanket failures damaged his tyres. Russian driver Sergey Sirotkin made his Formula One debut, driving Gutiérrez’s Sauber in the session; he finished seventeenth, four-tenths of a second behind Sutil. Roberto Merhi took Kobayashi’s Caterham.

Hamilton led FP2, finishing eight-tenths ahead of Magnussen and Alonso. Magnussen damaged his suspension after running wide over a kerb. Hamilton spun at the penultimate corner, narrowly avoiding the wall.

Hamilton was again fastest in FP3, three-tenths ahead of Rosberg. Following the first day’s running, officials installed speed bumps in the turn two–three run-off area to deter drivers from running wide to carry speed into turn four. The pit lane speed limit was also revised down from 80 to 60 km/h to address concerns over the narrow pit entry.