Bottas claims his maiden F1 victory

Valtteri Bottas triumphed in the Russian Grand Prix at Sochi Autodrom what is his maiden victory in Formula 1 World Championship. The Finn started perfectly and in his 83rd race in the championship finally reached the top spot on the podium.

McLaren’s woes continued after Fernando Alonso’s car stopped during the formation lap. Interestingly, that was his first DNS since the 2005 US Grand Prix. The start of the race was exciting after Valtteri Bottas amazingly took the lead from two Ferraris. At the same time, at the back of the grid, Romain Grosjean and Jolyon Palmer collided and were out of the race. Soon after, Daniel Ricciardo also retired from the race due to brakes failure.

Accident between Palmer and Grosjean

Even before the mid-stage of the race, it looked like that everything was decided. Bottas had a comfortable lead to Sebastian Vettel and generally, the gaps between the drivers were relatively big. After the pit-stop Vettel pushed hard to catch Bottas, reduced the gap under the one second, but the driver of Mercedes was calm and focused on keeping the lead.

Finally, he took the chequered flag for the first time in his career, while Vettel had to settle for the 2nd place what was enough to keep his lead in the Drivers’ Championship. Kimi Raikkonen completed the podium, easily beating completely indisposed Lewis Hamilton who was 4th.