Was Hamilton's Sochi defeat inevitable even without penalties saga?

Unusually, a Russian Grand Prix was set to be one to watch closely. How events transpired in the 2020 Sochi race will indeed mean it lives long in Formula 1's collective memory, but for very different reasons than had been expected when the field woke up last Sunday morning.

Lewis Hamilton was starting from his 96th F1 career pole, but he wasn't exactly happy about it. Two things had rather irked the world champion.

For a start, he would be heading off the line on the red-walled soft tyres. Immediately behind him, Red Bull's Max Verstappen and eventual race winner Valtteri Bottas were on the significantly more durable medium tyres.

Then there was the very long run from the grid to the race's first braking point - the ever-tricky Turn 2. As has been seen in the past in Sochi, being in front through such a lengthy acceleration zone into the right-hander puts the leading car at a big disadvantage, as the cars behind have a healthy slipstream.

"I did plead to have the medium tyre but they weren't having it," Hamilton had said after qualifying. "[Pole is] not a good place to start at all and I think this year you're seeing our cars are more draggy, and there's more tow this year than we've seen in other years. I generally expect one of these two to come flying by at some point."

So far, so simple, if perplexing for Hamilton, who said he would have to "sit down to try to figure out if there's a different kind of race I can do to keep my position".

But whatever plan he may have drawn up to overcome his rubber and tow problems suddenly became of much less interest minutes before the start. After he had brought his W11 to the grid for the pre-race procedures, it emerged that Hamilton was under investigation for completing his reconnaissance laps practice starts in an incorrect place.

Hamilton does not like to conduct his pre-race launch practices at the same place as the other drivers, as he feels the rubbery surface in the area designated - here "on the right-hand side after the pit exit lights", per the Sochi event notes of F1 race director Michael Masi - isn't representative of the grid surface. And so, he asked Mercedes if he could complete his practice starts further down the pitlane, and was told this was allowed.

"I thought initially I just had a bad start but then I looked in the mirror and I could see the whole line behind me had a poor start as well" Max Verstappen

But the stewards felt this contravened two rules, the first concerning the event-notes-mandated practice start area, and also Article 36.1 of F1's sporting rules, which requires the drivers to use constant throttle and speed in the pit exit, apart from at the defined practice start area.

When the lights went out, the investigation was still looming over Hamilton, but no decision had been forthcoming. And so, the run to Turn 2 commenced as normal, but things didn't go quite as badly as Hamilton had feared.

In fact, it was Verstappen who immediately conceded a position. The Red Bull driver appeared to react well enough, but "as soon as I dropped the clutch you could just feel there was no grip".

"I thought initially I just had a bad start but then I looked in the mirror and I could see the whole line behind me had a poor start as well," he added.

So Bottas's path to victory was made that bit easier, and it nearly became two cars in two corners (if we can call the Turn 1 kink a corner), as he used the tow to surge in on Hamilton and attack to the outside of Turn 2. For a moment, he was leading. But Bottas carried in too much speed and had to check up, careful to avoid fully cutting the kerbs at the second apex leading into the long left-hand Turn 3.

But this opening sequence had three stings in its tale.

"There was like a massive bee or something that hit my visor just before braking," Bottas later explained. "I couldn't really see when I should brake, so that's why I went too deep."

The other two stings concerned the violent race endings for Carlos Sainz Jr and Lance Stroll, which diverted attention from the Hamilton investigation and the intra-Mercedes battle as they led to the race being suspended further around the first lap.

Sainz had slid off after braking late for Turn 2 and he followed Verstappen through the marker boards that Masi's ever-more-often quoted notes required the drivers to traverse before rejoining from the runoff at Turn 3.

But, whereas Verstappen was tighter to the wall having gone off deeper under attack from the surging Daniel Ricciardo, the McLaren driver was approaching the bollards from a much narrower angle, and the speed he tried to turn around them was simply too great. He smashed into the wall, ripped his left-front wheel off and bounced back into the path of the pack, causing his team-mate Lando Norris to slow to avoid the wreckage.

At the next braking point, Turn 4, Stroll and Charles Leclerc were fighting over seventh and, as the Racing Point swung back ahead on the outside line at the exit of the right-hander, the Ferrari's left-front caught its right-rear and Stroll was pitched into the barriers. The safety car was called out and the race neutralised as the cars and scattered parts were removed.

The race resumed at the start of lap six, a thankfully tame affair after the crash-filled danger of the Mugello safety car restart, with Hamilton immediately stalking away to a 1.469-second lead as he led the pack back to racing speed.

But on the following tour the verdict was handed down. Twice. Hamilton was given a pair of five-second penalties to serve at his pitstop for the practice start violations.

He fumed over the radio and his team interrogated the interpretation of the rules in question. "I'm not happy with the penalty because it's far-fetched," Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said after the race, while Hamilton explained he had acted as he had "done it for years" concerning a practice start further down pit exits, citing Interlagos as a specific example.

Wolff added: "I will always respect the stewards in their job, but on that one we just agreed to disagree."

Effectively, Mercedes contended that Masi's event notes did not lay out exactly how far away from the pit exit lights practice starts could be carried out. "And that's what happened," said Wolff. "It doesn't say where, it doesn't specify."

"The original stop was supposed to be lap 16. Luckily, we had a safety car, which took us to lap six, or something like that. So, I thought, 'That's bonus points, it means I can go six laps longer'" Lewis Hamilton

But after the event it was too late, Hamilton had to remain stationary at his stop for an extra 10s. Before he got there, he had completed 16 laps on the softs - 11 after the safety car had come in.

And here was another moment of contention for Hamilton. After Mercedes had told him to increase his pace in anticipation of his pitstop, he was soon back on the radio requesting to be left out. He duly set a pair of then fastest laps before coming in on lap 16, but remained unhappy about the timing of his service.

"It ultimately didn't make a huge difference but my goal was to offset, to minimise the loss with the [soft] tyres," Hamilton said when asked about this phase of the race by Autosport.

"So, the original stop was supposed to be lap 16. Luckily, we had a safety car, which took us to lap six, or something like that. So, I thought, 'That's bonus points, it means I can go six laps longer'. I think they stopped me still on lap 16, but I thought I could at least do another five laps, which would have just made it a little easier on that second stint."

And this is the crux of the question: was Hamilton destined to lose the 2020 Russian GP even without his practice start penalties saga? Because, at this point, we can see that the killer blow to his hopes of victory had surely already been struck.

As soon as Hamilton peeled off into the pitlane, with a 2.757s lead at the end of lap 15, Bottas reeled off a string of personal best laps. He immediately matched Hamilton's quickest lap to that point and then dipped under it, heading towards the low 1m39s - having been exchanging quicker times in the low 1m41s and high 1m40s with Hamilton over the opening 15 laps.

This was the advantage of the medium tyres. Not only could Bottas match and then exceed Hamilton's pace in clean air, but he could run much deeper into the race before coming in to take his own set of hard tyres. In fact, with Mercedes telling him every lap he could do before pitting would minimise his risk of losing out under a second safety car, he stayed out for a further 10 laps compared to his team-mate.

At this point we should also consider the impact of Verstappen starting on the mediums. Red Bull had fitted soft tyres to his car at the end of that thrilling Q2 session, but ordered him to abort the lap within sight of the line to preserve that critical race strategy advantage when it became clear his Q3 place was safe.

"We might have held position off the line [with Verstappen on the softs] but we would have conceded it at the end of the first stint," said Red Bull team boss Christian Horner. "We wouldn't have had the longevity. So, the reality is I don't think it made a great deal of difference. [But] it certainly gave us a better race against Hamilton with his penalty."

While the penalties surely did ease Verstappen's race against Hamilton in the second stint, his opening stint on the medium was also a problem for the Briton, as it gave Verstappen the same advantage that Bottas possessed in terms of pace and opening stint length.

In the eight laps between Hamilton's stop and Verstappen coming in on the 25th tour, Bottas effectively won the race. He was 0.77s per lap faster than the Red Bull on the same compound, opening the gap between them from 3.048s to 9.209s.

"When I was in clean air it really felt pretty good and the pace was strong," Bottas explained. "Same with the hard tyre [in the second stint]. I could really feel that I could control the race."

And there was another gain that Bottas pressed after making his stop.

Even without his 10s of additional race time, Hamilton still had 37 laps to complete to get to the end. He did so at an average lap time of 1m39.214s, which compares to the 1m38.651s Bottas was able to do over his 27 laps on the hard tyres (the average in both cases discount the slow lap under the brief virtual safety car, caused by Romain Grosjean destroying some of the Turn 2 marker boards after going off battling Sebastian Vettel late on, as well as the final tour when Hamilton slowed considerably to the line). Verstappen's average came in at 1m38.654s.

If we apply the inexact science of removing those controversial 10s from Hamilton's race time, and the 3.004s he gave up to Verstappen on the final lap, he may have come home 1.996s behind the Red Bull - and well adrift of Bottas

Going back to the extra laps Hamilton wanted to stay out before his stop, it should be noted that Mercedes would have been aware of the risk of an undercut from the Renault cars, which had also started on the softs and came in on laps 15 (Ricciardo) and 18 (Esteban Ocon). But Hamilton conceded this had had no impact on the result of the second stint.

The ultimate answer to the question posed cannot be completely clear cut. Hamilton was indeed slower across his second stint compared to Bottas, as is to be expected given his tyre life deficit. He even admitted on his team radio he was having to manage his tyres to the finish from early in the second stint, just in case.

The missing five laps he wanted to stay out in his opening stint could be considered a factor in his defeat, as the Renaults were only a threat because of his penalty, but Hamilton dismisses this and in any case he would still have had a five lap tyre-life gap to Bottas.

But if we apply the inexact science of removing those controversial 10s from Hamilton's race time, and the 3.004s he gave up to Verstappen on the final lap, he may have come home 1.996s behind the Red Bull - and well adrift of Bottas.

And yet, without the penalties, Hamilton would have emerged ahead of Verstappen after their stops. As it was, the Mercedes was just 5.155s behind after the Red Bull's out-lap on lap 26.

So, assuming their relative pace would have been the same after that - Verstappen was 0.56s a lap quicker across his shorter second stint compared to Hamilton - the duo could have been together in the final third of the race. Verstappen would then have had to pass Hamilton to secure second.

But the fact he would probably have been fighting Verstappen for second, well adrift of Bottas with the penalty time removed appears to demonstrate that the damage really was done when Hamilton was obliged to start on the softs.

We must also consider that - taken in isolation from what was a pretty devastating qualifying defeat to Hamilton, and Verstappen for good measure - this was a fine race performance from Bottas.

After his out-lap, Bottas was 15.401s ahead of Hamilton, indicating that he would have grabbed the lead without the #44 Mercedes having to serve the extra time in the pits. And the Finn's pace after that suggests he would not have come under threat from Hamilton, unless you argue that the world champion would have found something extra with a sniff of victory in the air.

In the 27 laps between his sole stop and the finish, where he claimed his ninth F1 career win and second in Sochi, his lead (over Verstappen) grew to 13.437s by the end of the 35th tour, shrank to 5.513s as he managed his pace and dealt with backmarkers after lap 50, and was back up to 7.729s at the flag. He never had to be incredibly fast late on, apart from in his successful quest to take the fastest lap, because he'd done enough earlier in the race - much as Hamilton has done so many times this season.

In a sense, this was a victory overshadowed by the attention on Hamilton's pre-race actions - and especially the later rescinded superlicence points he had initially been handed, which briefly put him perilously close to a one-race ban.

"It was a strong race and really I feel that it can give me a confidence boost and good momentum for the next races" Valtteri Bottas

But what cannot be denied is that Bottas finally struck a blow back in the title hunt. The Sochi race makes it three events in a row where Hamilton has left a crack of opportunity shine through to his team-mate and, whereas he failed to capitalise on two occasions in Italy, this time Bottas made no mistake last Sunday. The Q2 shenanigans showed this was an unusually scrappy weekend for Hamilton, and it ended with his points lead cut from 55 to 44.

"It was a strong race and really I feel that it can give me a confidence boost and good momentum for the next races," Bottas concluded, having brought out his "to whom it may concern, f*** you" celebratory message from Australia 2019 on the cooldown lap.

Considering those comments later, he said: "There's been people telling me that I should not bother, I should give up. But, how I am, I will never do that."

Bottas certainly bounced back with his Sochi triumph - if it was inevitable ahead of the start or not - but the world title battle still needs him to land further blows.