2020 Russian Grand Prix Mercedes-Benz Round Up

September 28 2020

Saturday:

Lewis Hamilton scored his 96^th pole position in Formula One, this was his eighth of the 2020 F1 season and second at the Russian Grand Prix. The 1:31.304 set by Lewis in Q3 is a new lap record at the Sochi Autodrom. Lewis will start the 2020 Russian Grand Prix on the Soft tyre, with Valtteri starting on the Medium compound. Lewis said,

“That was one of the toughest Qualifying sessions I can remember, proper heart in your mouth the whole way. But I feel super grateful for everyone keeping their cool as it could have been a lot, lot worse.”

Valtteri Bottas qualified in third place and started Sunday’s race from the second row of the grid. Va;tteri said,

“It was looking pretty good for me, I felt like I had the pace through Q1 and Q2, and both of those sessions went nice and smoothly. But Q3 was a tricky one.”

Sunday:

Valtteri secured his ninth victory in Formula One – his second of the 2020 F1 season and second at the Russian Grand Prix. Valtteri had this to say,

“What a feeling! It’s been a little while since my last win, but I knew there would be opportunities heading into the race and luckily things went my way this time. It was a bit tricky at the start because an insect hit my visor just as I was entering the braking zone, which meant I couldn’t really see where to brake and so I went deep. But I knew it was going to be a long race and with the Medium tyre, there would be chances later on. Lewis then had his penalty, and once I was in clean air, the pace was really strong, and I was able to control everything without any real concerns. Now I need to keep this momentum up. There are quite a few races to go and you just never know, so I’ll keep pushing, I won’t give up and we’ll see how it turns out in the end.”

Lewis recovered from receiving two five-second time penalties for a practice start violation, which he served at his pit stop, to complete the podium finishers in third. Sunday’s result marked Lewis’s 150^th Grand Prix start for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team. Lewis commented,

“It wasn’t a great day for me, but it is what it is. We need to go through everything and understand exactly what went on to get those two penalties. That obviously dropped me back and the first stint on the Soft was also challenging, as I was trying to go as far as I could on that tyre. I think I did pretty well on the Soft and from then, it was about trying to recover as much as possible. It was just one of those days, but I’m grateful that I still managed to get a podium, bag some points and didn’t lose as much as I could have done. Congratulations to Valtteri on the win, and I’ll take the points and move forward.”

Valtteri scored the fastest lap for the 15^th time in his F1 career. Lewis (205 points) led the Drivers’ Championship by 44 points from Valtteri (161 points). The Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team (366 points) led the Red Bull Racing (192 points) by 174 points in the Constructors' Championship.

Dom Riefstahl, Race Support Team Leader and Test Engineer, accepted the Constructors’ trophy on behalf of the team.