Looking back over the three years of the Russian Grand Prix, you’d think it was a slam dunk that Mercedes will win this weekend. It’s a power hungry circuit that devours the best power units in the business, and in qualifying it’s clear that Mercedes still have the ability to turn up the wick and exploit extra speed for the short duration of one lap. In addition, qualifying is crucial as overtaking is tough and there are relatively few pitstops on a circuit that doesn’t overstretch the tyres. Mercedes have won all three races from pole position and only been beaten in two out of the nine practice sessions held here, and that was down to some slippery track conditions that interrupted their normal running.
Valtteri Bottas will no doubt look at that record with some relish, because he has a pretty decent CV here himself. Always qualifying third fastest, indeed promoted to the front row last year thanks to Vettel’s gearbox penalty, he’s finished on the podium once but was in position to do it again in 2015 before an altercation with Raikkonen put paid to that, and he was a solid 4th last year. His current race engineer at Mercedes guided Rosberg to a genuine pole over Lewis here in 2015 and Nico was unfortunate in the race when a throttle problem took him out of the lead and into retirement. Last year the eventual champion made up for that, helped by engine problems for Hamilton in qualifying, so there’ll be some real confidence on that side of the garage particularly after Valtteri delivered pole position in Bahrain a couple of weeks ago.
But in order to win his first Grand Prix, he needs to deliver a solid race performance, and so far in the three races we’ve seen this year, there have been hiccups. A slower than ideal first stint in Australia, a spin behind the Safety Car in China and a tough opening stint in Bahrain on over-inflated tyres which melded into a less than satisfactory run on Super Softs in the middle of the race. The level of intensity in the competition between Mercedes and Ferrari this year means any weaknesses will be amplified, errors will be brutally exposed and the Finn has to step up now and show he can deliver at this highest level.
Perhaps he can take inspiration from the venue; the site of the Winter Olympics in 2014, the circuit weaves its way between the medal plaza, the figure skating stadium and a building which started life hosting the speed skating but now houses some of the biggest tennis events in the country. Bottas was a talented ice hockey player himself as a youngster, following in the footsteps of his father Rauno who played at a high level, and still enjoys any opportunity to take to the ice. Could it be that some of that high speed hand-eye coordination and proprioception skills that are so useful in motorsport were developed with hockey stick in hand and puck to chase? Wherever his skills came from, he now has to show he can compete with the very best in the world.
Talking of which, if we end up with a front row made up of Hamilton and Vettel then the flat-out blast to Turn 2 at the start of the race could provide some real fireworks. Vettel ended up in the wall at Turn 3 last year, and Hamilton saw his team mate lunge and lock up back in 2014, effectively ending the competition there and then. So even if Bottas doesn’t quite make the numbers in qualifying, he could be well placed to pick up the pieces in the race. So yes, I believe he can win in Russia but to do so he’ll need to draw on his Finnish Sisu, that resilience and determination to overcome all odds that his nation is famous for, and which has helped create three F1 World Champions in the past 35 years.