Russian GP Qualifying: Rosberg on pole as luck eludes Hamilton

Right now nothing seems to be going wrong for F1 world championship leader Nico Rosberg as he breezed through qualifying to claim pole position for the Russian Grand Prix while his Mercedes teammate, and arch rival, Lewis Hamilton was plagued by bad luck once again.

The Silver Arrows are head and shoulders above the rest of the pack at Sochi Autodrom, thus a battle between Rosberg and Hamilton for top spot on the grid was expected but failed to materialise, as the latter climbed out of his car after Q2 with a turbo issue preventing any further action for the reigning world champion.

That all but handed Rosberg pole position as the pair were almost a second up on the best of the rest, who again was Sebastian Vettel in the Ferrari albeit nearly three quarters of a second shy of Rosberg's pole winning time of 1:35.417.

Although Hamilton was quickest in Q1, Rosberg was mega in Q2 and looked to have rattled the world champ, thus setting up what had all the makings of a dog-fight, but in the end fizzled out to a no contest.

In Q3 Rosberg went fastest with his first attempt. He then went for a second run but overdid it and came back to the pits where he parked it and walked down the pitlane to the driver weigh-in while his rivals toiled hopelessly. He had done the job with time to spare.

"I was confident the lap was good enough because in Q2," reflected Rosberg. "Ferrari were far away and Lewis did not participate. I was sure enough, but you never know. I was glad when Seb passed the line that it was good enough.

"I was focused on myself and going for it and I felt great. From Q2 onwards it felt awesome. My race is a little easier tomorrow. The opposition are still there and I need to focus and get the job done," he added.

Chasing Rosberg in Q3 was Vettel along with his Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen and Williams driver Valtteri Bottas. Vettel did enough to finish the session second fastest, but will drop five places on the grid for the race.

Vettel said, "I would like the gap to be smaller, but in Q2 we saw Nico is very strong. For us it was the maximum. P2 helps tomorrow with the penalty. We can start on the clean side."

"The car is good and the weekend is strong. I’m not frustrated by unreliability, it is part of racing, not done on purpose. We are pushing hard to try to catch up," concluded Vettel.

Bottas won the battle of the Finns with the third best time, as Raikkonen fumbled his final flyer to end fourth fastest.

It was a forlorn Hamilton who faced the media and explained, "It's the second engine I took at the last race and it's the same failure as the last race."

The world champion is set to start from tenth on the grid provided there are no penalties handed out for the turbo failure.

Felipe Massa was fifth fastest in the second Williams, ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in sixth for Red Bull Racing, his hot lap compromised when a mirror worked loose of his car.

Sergio Perez of Force India impressed on his way to seventh, while teammate Nico Hulkenberg could not make it out of Q3 and ended 13th on the timing screens.

Local hero Daniil Kvyat was eighth in the second Red Bull Racing and the final top 10 spots were taken by Toro Rosso’s and the unfortunate Hamilton, who was also summoned to the stewards office for “failing to follow the race director’s Turn 2 instructions”.

Kvyat’s eighth place was notable as he narrowly escaped elimination after Q2. The Russian was in P11 as the chequered flag was waved at the end of Q2 but he had just begun a final flying lap. To the delight of his home crowd the Red Bull driver was able to find enough pace to climb to P10, at the expense of Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz.

Behind the Spaniard, Jenson Button came close to taking McLaren into Q3 for the first time this season but ended up just under 0.1 of a second shy in P12.

Nico Hulkenberg was 12th to split the two McLarens, with Fernando Alonso in P14. Romain Grosjean was 15th for Haas ahead of team-mate Esteban Gutierrez.

Q1 saw the elimination of Renault’s Kevin Magnussen in P17, followed by team-mate Jolyon Palmer, Sauber’s Felipe Nasr, Manor’s Pascal Wehrlein, team-mate Rio Haryanto and the second Sauber of Marcus Ericsson.