SOCHI REVIEW BY BEN STEVENS
Saturday
The fourth qualifying Saturday of the
season promised to be the closest yet – would it
live up to the hype? Absolutely.
Starting with a few early timesheet-toppers
in FP3, and finishing with Sebastian Vettel
on pole, Ferrari picked up right where it left off
on Friday. They’ve brought the fight all season
on Sunday, and now with their first 1-2 since
2008, it’s officially been taken to Saturdays
too.
Much has been made in the past 24 hours
of Mercedes struggles getting temperature into
its tyres, and while there’s certainly an issue
with back-end grip, make no mistake: this
was all Ferrari. The SF70H plants itself into a
corner and stays planted, the kerbs providing
less of a disruption than a lawsuit to Bernie
Ecclestone, and the advantage it gave Vettel
(and Kimi Raikkonen) was obvious. The team
was clearly elated with the performance, as they
should be – perhaps Sochi exacerbates the Silver
Arrows’ problems, but the Scuderia was simply
on another level.
Also it’s fascinating to see Lewis Hamilton
legitimately struggle for once. It doesn’t
get more damning than finishing half-a-
second back from pole. Sochi might not be
his favourite track (Rosberg out-qualified
him each of the past two seasons), but his
performance was undeniably poor. Whether he’s
up to it or not, it might be on Valtteri Bottas to
lead the charge.