Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Sochi Autodrom, 2020

2020 Russian Grand Prix grid

2020 Russian Grand Prix

Posted on

| Written by

Row 11. Lewis Hamilton 1’31.304
Mercedes
2. Max Verstappen 1’31.867
Red Bull
Row 23. Valtteri Bottas 1’31.956
Mercedes
4. Sergio Perez 1’32.317
Racing Point
Row 35. Daniel Ricciardo 1’32.364
Renault
6. Carlos Sainz Jnr 1’32.550
McLaren
Row 47. Esteban Ocon 1’32.624
Renault
8. Lando Norris 1’32.847
McLaren
Row 59. Pierre Gasly 1’33.000
AlphaTauri
10. Charles Leclerc 1’33.239
Ferrari
Row 611. Daniil Kvyat 1’33.249
AlphaTauri
12. Lance Stroll 1’33.364
Racing Point
Row 713. George Russell 1’33.583
Williams
14. Sebastian Vettel 1’33.609
Ferrari
Row 815. Alexander Albon 1’33.008
Red Bull
16. Romain Grosjean 1’34.592
Haas
Row 917. Antonio Giovinazzi 1’34.594
Alfa Romeo
18. Kevin Magnussen 1’34.681
Haas
Row 1019. Kimi Raikkonen 1’35.267
Alfa Romeo
20. Nicholas Latifi 1’35.066
Williams

Penalties

Alexander Albon – Five-place grid penalty for gearbox change
Nicholas Latifi – Five-place grid penalty for gearbox change

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

22 comments on “2020 Russian Grand Prix grid”

  1. How was Albon that slow in S2 and S3? S1 time was pretty decent.

    1. This is his last year in F1 anyway. No excuse for being over a second slower than your teammate.
      Bottas equally poor on pace in fairness along with Ocon in comparison to their teammates.

      1. Correction as I missed Ocon had improved.

      2. And yet, this being Sochi with that long run to T1, Bottas is in the best starting position on the grid

        1. Lewis on Softs while Bottas on mediums

  2. Max does it again. And well, Lewis is Lewis.

    1. Max got a huge row from somebody……otherwise prob 3rd

      1. @homerlovesbeer Was Bottas, ironically enough.

  3. I like Albon, but this really does not look good. Bottas is nowhere just as expected and people will still find excuses for him. Vandoorne interviewing drivers actually somehow sad to see.

    1. Bottas just happened to not be at his best in Q3 which hasn’t occurred much this year. His reason this time was that he simply didn’t get a good lap together, but nobody should say Bottas being nowhere in qualifying should be expected. He made mistakes today, but doesn’t normally. The closest to Verstappen has ever got when they both did a representative run was one single time when he matched him to the thousandth of a second. Never once has he beaten him on 1 lap pace. Otherwise the average seems to be half a second or so which is significantly worse than Bottas.

      1. @thegianthogweed

        Not even Bottas himself can constantly defend his abysmal performances the way you do every time someone calls him out. Theres always a stat or reason for such poor performance from you.

        2 poles and 1 win so far and yet ‘he’s not as bad as he looks’

        1. My comments today are specifically talking about qualifying only. And in that area, he has been incredibly close to Hamilton most of this year. So defending the odd poor qualifying session is reasonable. Though he doesn’t have a good excuse this time.

          Chandhok pointed that out on sky that qualifying is where he’s incredibly close to Hamilton the majority of the time so it isn’t just me noticing this. He has only outqualified Hamilton twice, but the margins in 5 – 6 results have been simply tiny.

          His race pace isn’t great relative to Hamilton and I can’t deny that. But that was not my point today.

      2. @thegianthogweed Yet now more than ever he needs to be flawless, he needs to somehow unsettle Hamilton. It’s just not there is it, the consistency he know he needs in order to get a look in.

        Maybe, just maybe, Bottas has deliberately gone for 2nd, the track notorious for not favouring pole… Perhaps misjudged and too slow, not counting on Max to get every last millisecond from the Red Bull and nab 2nd. Not necessarily a problem with good draft, but Max is too good, too smart, too aggressive to make this a straightforward pass. Assuming good starts from all…

        1. Well, Bottas knows what starting 3rd is like here. With Hamilton on what looks to be a worse strategy and him having verstappen and Hamilton as a tow, that is actually a fortunate position to be in. I actually don’t think 3rd is much worse than 2nd and arguably as a thread on this site suggested, 2nd is often better then first here. Bottas is in a decent position to challenge Hamilton so I really hope he does. If he finishes 3rd this weekend without good reason, that will really be disappointing given it is a track he’s usually great at.

    2. @tryneplague I found him doing the interviews somewhat weird as he’s with Mercedes there, so the same team as two of the three he interviewed.

  4. Would be nice if you could include the starting tire for the to 10 on the starting grid table

  5. Toro Rosso???

    1. @the-edge Surely they mean Minardi?

    2. Can’t see Simtek, Midland and Spyker.

  6. One of the best and dramatic qualification I have ever see. Who says F1 is boring?

  7. Ocon is quickly heading the same way as werhlein and vandoorne 9-1 Ricciardo in qualifying already.

  8. I’ve given up on Ferrari for this year… I’ll pull for McLaren for the rest of the season for the first time since Prost, if I bother to watch F1 at all.

Comments are closed.