2015 Russian Grand Prix grid

44 comments on “2015 Russian Grand Prix grid”

1. 

   Ivan Vinitskyy (@ivan-vinitskyy)
   10th October 2015, 14:05

   Good laps there from Rosberg, should make for an interesting race tomorrow.
   1. 

      OmarRoncal - Go Seb!!! - @omarr-pepper (@)
      10th October 2015, 14:09

      Naaaa Rosberg can do nothing to prevent Hamilton make his usual push move and cruise for the win.
   2. 

      Albrecht
      10th October 2015, 14:09

      @ivan-vinitskyy Interesting first 30 seconds before he gets passed by Hamilton.
   3. 

      Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
      10th October 2015, 14:10

      Yes, although pole here is even less important than in Suzuka. Nico’s side of the garage has tried to improve the starts as ever since the mid-season rule change, Nico has been making relatively poor starts. I hope he gets away 1st as I’m sure Lewis and Mercedes will try their best to get the victory and the constructors championship on Sunday.
      1. 

         Albrecht
         10th October 2015, 14:14

         Nico has been making relatively poor starts.

         Try terrible.
2. 

   OmarRoncal - Go Seb!!! - @omarr-pepper (@)
   10th October 2015, 14:06

   What happened to Massa?
   1. 

      Nase (@)
      10th October 2015, 14:09

      First lap was affected by a mistake, last attempt was worthless due to heavy traffic – at least that’s what he said. It didn’t become quite evident from the onboards, but we didn’t get to see the whole lap.
      1. 

         Nase (@)
         10th October 2015, 14:23

         OK, actually according to his and Smedley’s last interviews, there was something wrong in every single of his four flying laps. Long story short: It was a bit of a story of repeatedly being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he wasn’t without blame.
         Disappointing, because the car definitely has good pace, and the top 6 are definitely a lot merrier the more competitive cars there are. He’ll probably recover to score a point or two, but he probably won’t be able to make many overtakes. The track doesn’t quite allow that to happen.
   2. 

      Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
      10th October 2015, 14:14

      why did no one asked what happened to Pastor? Jordan was a little bias to Massa. I don’t like Massa but Felipe is not one to make mistakes in qualifying. In the end will know soon if he had deployment issues again. Massa wouldn’t be the only one as Pastor certainly had PU issues his car didn’t sound right.
      1. 

         brown
         10th October 2015, 23:32

         lol, because nobody cares about maldonado
   3. 

      Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
      10th October 2015, 14:50

      @omarr-pepper Traffic
3. 

   PorscheF1 (@xtwl)
   10th October 2015, 14:08

   So now they also managed to make Q boring.
   1. 

      Mijail (@mijail)
      10th October 2015, 14:10

      It was Mercedes strategy which made it boring, everything was decided with 3 min to go.
   2. 

      Albrecht
      10th October 2015, 14:11

      This was not particularly different to most qualifying sessions in the past 3 years. Complaining about it now feels like complaining for the sake of complaining.
      1. 

         Nase (@)
         10th October 2015, 14:12

         Yup.
      2. 

         PorscheF1 (@xtwl)
         10th October 2015, 14:18

         Not really. There is not one single story to be told from Q3 which has always been the case. Right from Q1 when you knew Massa was out you could predict the top 10, I only had Kvyat and Verstappen changed, and every single driver got in the place that could be predicted by someone who has been watching F1 just a few races…
         1. 

            Albrecht
            10th October 2015, 14:31

            Complaining for the sake of complaining, indeed.
   3. 

      ColdFly F1 (@)
      10th October 2015, 14:18

      Disagree! We saw more driver errors, and 4 teams only getting 1 car into Q3!
      I quite like it when there is less FP.
      1. 

         PorscheF1 (@xtwl)
         10th October 2015, 14:21

         @coldfly Many mistakes because the tyres weren’t heated properly, not because drivers were pushing so incredibly hard. I believe the session could have been more had the drivers not needed 3 laps to get temp in the tyres.
         1. 

            ColdFly F1 (@)
            10th October 2015, 14:33

            a mistake means that they were pushing too hard! – given: tyre temps; track status; car quality; driver skills; etc.
            I’m still happy with this session, and want to see more ‘Hülkenberg style’ weekends!
            1. 

               ceng
               10th October 2015, 14:39

               I want no more. Last 2 weekends have been the most boringest of all so far.
      2. 

         ura
         10th October 2015, 14:31

         I don’t. Ferrari can’t get it together with less practice. Mercedes is faster out-of-the-box compared to everyone. So, only more practice and tinkering can get others any closer.
      3. 

         wert
         10th October 2015, 14:38

         Really? Imo it’s quite artificial and makes it even more boring than it’s been other times. For example, Q1 was the first time all weekend Vettel used supersofts. Listening to him he thinks they should have been a lot more closer to Mercedes than they are. So basically the biggest challengers for the championship can’t fight now.
   4. 

      John H (@john-h)
      10th October 2015, 14:24

      The issue is, if this was at Spa at least you could look at the scenery and it would keep you occupied. Staring at constant radius flat corners with tech pro and concrete everywhere is just dreadful… there really is no other word.

      There was a piece on the bbc a few weeks back saying forget engines, car shapes, tyres, what we really should be addressing is the quality of the tracks. I completely agree and I’m pleased finally some of the drivers have started to criticise Tilke and that company’s systematic poor design monopoly.

      Bernie has caused this by not allowing a competition framework for design teams to propose alternative track designs within the regulations, allowing public consultation, etc… basically because the clients are usually governments who don’t really care about the quality of the race, only that it’s being staged there so they can fly some fighter jets over it or whatever.

      Ok, I think that’s enough :)
      1. 

         benny
         10th October 2015, 15:12

         Oh no! There’s the rest of the world outside of Europe! People live there too! They must be uncivilized colonies. Let’s colonize them.
         1. 

            John H (@john-h)
            10th October 2015, 15:58

            Is this directed at Bernie or me!? My point is that allowing one design company to monopolise track design (wherever it is) is not healthy.

            Maybe you can tell me why it is that at all new F1 venues Tilke is the chosen design office?
            1. 

               anon
               10th October 2015, 20:41

               @john-h, in the past, the main reason cited for Tilke being the preferred track designer is because his organisation has tended to operate a very effective turn-key operation. Not only does his outfit turn out a track, it also designs the supporting infrastructure required and manage the construction phase as well – that is something that not that many outfits can provide (not just within the track design field, but within the wider civil engineering industry as a whole), which gives Tilke a major edge over his rivals.

               There is also the fact that one of the few rival track designers out there – Apex Designs – were involved in a particularly expensive and disastrous project that, fairly or unfairly, badly damaged their reputation and has more or less left the field clear for Tilke.
4. 

   Keisalex
   10th October 2015, 14:09

   Maybe Lauda’s reverse pschycology with Rosberg, calling him the 3rd/4th best driver of the current F1 grid and Lewis 1st, worked. Rosberg is really on pole, it’s not a joke :P
   1. 

      Nase (@)
      10th October 2015, 14:14

      pschycology

      Did you mean: “Psychology”? :p
      1. 

         Keisalex
         10th October 2015, 14:16

         For sure, quick typing mistake ;)
      2. 

         brown
         10th October 2015, 23:34

         its more fun trying to pronounce it that way :)
5. 

   David-A (@david-a)
   10th October 2015, 14:09

   Hamilton can’t break the record for poles in a season now.
   1. 

      Nase (@)
      10th October 2015, 14:11

      For some (probably not nice) reason, this fact dis-annoys me. Maybe there was just too much hype about his achievements, making me wish that some kind of deflation happens.
   2. 

      Egorov (@egorov)
      10th October 2015, 14:22

      But he can equal it?
   3. 

      yogart
      10th October 2015, 14:54

      He can’t break the record for most poles in 1 season.
      He also can’t break the record for most wins in 1 season either.
      Looking at some of the other records held by Vettel, he can’t also break the records for most starts from front row in a season and most podium finishes in a season.
      He also can’t lose more than 5 points if he wants to break the record for most championship points earned in a season.
      He can still break Vettel’s record of most wins from pole position in a season if he wins more than 2 races from pole. This one is quite ironic actually, because Vettel has a much better record of turning pole positions into race wins.
   4. 

      DonSmee (@david-beau)
      10th October 2015, 16:50

      That is because he has a fast team mate. Mansell and Vettel teammates were not really close to them in qualifying on a regular enough basis.
      1. 

         David-A (@david-a)
         10th October 2015, 18:15

         @david-beau – Disagree. Patrese outqualified Mansell 9-7 in 1991 before Mansell hit back in 1992. Webber and Vettel’s average qualifying gap was around a tenth in 2010 despite Vettel getting 10 poles. If Hamilton gets the remaining 4 poles, which he is capable of doing, then he’d have 15, with his teammate on 3, and Vettel on 1. Just like 2011 with Vettel 15, Webber 3, Hamilton 1.
6. 

   lala
   10th October 2015, 14:21

   So are Rosberg and Bottas gonna fall prey to Hamilton and Vettel tomorrow at the start?
   1. 

      Nase (@)
      10th October 2015, 14:28

      Hamilton and Rosberg – maybe. I doubt that Rosberg will be tricked into overheating his engine again, but he has yet to produce a competitive start under the new starting procedure, so maybe Lewis can immediately “correct” the order on the run down to turn 1.
      As for Bottas, I don’t think there’s too much of a reason to worry for him. The Williamses’ (is that the correct form?!) starts’ve been consistently strong all season, and I can’t think of too many examples of a Ferrari sprinting past a Martini car this season. Anything can happen, of course, but I don’t think Vettel should count on that happening.
      1. 

         Fanie
         10th October 2015, 14:49

         Japan comes to mind
      2. 

         paul
         10th October 2015, 15:01

         Yeah. Just last race. And maybe it doesn’t come to mind because Vettel generally starts ahead and you know Raikkonen… though I think it was China where he got ahead of both Williams cars in first lap.
         But Ferrari do get stuck behind Williams a lot.
         Vettel: Australia, Bahrain, Austria.
         Raikkonen: Spain, Belgium, Japan.
         I think actually the one and only time they got ahead on-track was Vettel at Spa.
         They have a much better record of getting ahead at the start.
      3. 

         Digitalrurouni
         11th October 2015, 2:53

         Did you say tricked into overheating engine? How in the world does one get tricked into that?
         1. 

            Nase (@)
            25th October 2015, 17:55

            Did you say tricked into overheating engine? How in the world does one get tricked into that?

            I can’t answer that in passive voice, but actively tricking someone into overheating their engine is not that difficult, but in a dark grey area of the rules.
            Hamilton achieved this by going extremely slowly at the end of the formation lap, while Rosberg continued at a normal pace. This led to Rosberg sitting on his grid position for quite some time before Hamilton joined him with the rest of the pack. Without cooling, Rosberg’s engine started getting hotter and hotter, while Hamilton kept rolling for much more time, thus cooling his engine a bit more.
            The rules forbid going unnecessarily slow or leaving too big a gap, but no-one protested against Hamilton’s antics, so he was safe and able to overtake Rosberg at the start, when the latter’s engine lost a bit of power due to reaching a critical temperature at which the engine is automatically turned down a bit.
7. 

   TrueGrit
   11th October 2015, 3:23

   Am I seeing things? Ricciardo is 1.39.7 in P10 and Kvyat 1.39.2 in P11?

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