Bottas completes Friday sweep at Sochi as Mercedes dominates

Valtteri Bottas completed a clean sweep of practice sessions at Sochi on Friday, while after finishing 19th in FP1 normal service resumed for Lewis Hamilton, who rounded out a Mercedes 1-2.

Bottas was the pace-setter on the hard tyres early and then juked it out with Hamilton for the fastest time inside the last hour.

But a lock-up at Turn 7 – which he repeated later on – for Hamilton combined with a pair of blistering laps from Bottas ended the session in the Finn’s favour at one of his best circuits.

Hamilton wasn’t quite able to match his team-mate but improved on his miserable first session of the day, while Bottas ran wide at the last corner on multiple occasions and needed advice from the team to use a higher gear at Turns 8 and 9 to help.

In the last 30 minutes the pair tried longer runs, but Bottas’s hard-tyre running was halted by something sticking to his hand in the cockpit – although he returned to set very impressive times.

Hamilton’s second Turn 7 lock-up was the only issue in his medium-tyre running, although that was shorter than Bottas’s attempts and Hamilton switched back to softs late on.

A squabble for the best spots behind the Mercedes pair was decided with the soft tyre runs, which most teams elected to do with around 45 minutes in the session to go.

Daniel Ricciardo, who was second in FP1, netted the third-fastest time, albeit 1.058s behind Bottas.

The McLarens were just defeated by Ricciardo, with Lando Norris flying to fourth with the assistance of a splattering of flo-vis paint on the front right of his front wing, before his team-mate Carlos Sainz went slightly later and stole the spot away.

Behind Norris, Sergio Perez had impressive pace on the soft tyre over a long run and went sixth-fastest for Racing Point, ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen – who spun during the rapid soft-shod laps at Turn 8, losing the rear halfway through the corner.

Ferrari went one better than this morning and put two cars in the top 10, as Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel took eighth and 10th respectively.

They sandwiched Esteban Ocon, who continues to struggle in matching his Renault team-mate Ricciardo.

Ocon was politely reminded by the team to take care of the front left at Turn 4 late on in the session.

Monza winner Pierre Gasly beat the man who replaced him at Red Bull last year – Alexander Albon – to 11th. Albon was two tenths adrift of team-mate Verstappen.

Home favourite Daniil Kvyat sealed 13th in the second AlphaTauri and had one of the busiest sessions in terms of laps, ahead of the best of the Ferrari-powered privateers, Kimi Raikkonen at Alfa Romeo.

The two Williams cars were led by Nicholas Latifi, with George Russell complaining about traffic, saying it was “like qualifying” on a crowded track late on.

Lance Stroll could only manage 17th for Racing Point despite running on the softest tyre.

Kevin Magnussen was the top Haas, ahead of Antonio Giovinazzi and Romain Grosjean.

Practice 2 Results