Russian Grand Prix driver ratings

6 NICO ROSBERG
Mercedes F1 W07

Start: 1st
Finish: 1st
Strategy: 1 stop (super-soft/soft)

Rating: 9

Rosberg enjoyed another unchallenged run to pole thanks to Hamilton's latest Saturday woe, though his impressive pace in Q2 suggested he may have been the pole favourite in any case. He loses a mark for failing to go quicker in Q3 and messing up his best lap.

But the championship leader drove a faultless race. Even problems with the MGU-K couldn't stop him making it seven wins on the spin.

44 LEWIS HAMILTON
Mercedes F1 W07

Start: 10th
Finish: 2nd
Strategy: 1 stop (super-soft/soft)

Rating: 8

What's Hamilton got to do to catch a break this year? He was looking good in Q1 but more MGU-H trouble left him playing catch-up again.

His Q2 pace before the problem was disappointing, and he confessed to a slow start, but otherwise drove very well again and could have challenged Rosberg but for the water pressure loss his engine suffered in the race.

5 SEBASTIAN VETTEL
Ferrari SF16-H

Start: 7th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (super-soft/retired)

Rating: 8

Vettel refused to be disappointed by the gap to Mercedes in qualifying, despite Ferrari bringing engine updates to Sochi. He chipped away but could do no better than second fastest, which became seventh on the grid thanks to a gearbox penalty.

He started the race strongly and was putting the moves on Ricciardo's Red Bull before getting punted by Kvyat (twice) and fired into the barriers.

7 KIMI RAIKKONEN
Ferrari SF16-H

Start: 3rd
Finish: 3rd
Strategy: 1 stop (super-soft/soft)

Rating: 5

Raikkonen was always likely to struggle at a circuit where feeling through the front tyres is harder to find, but set-up troubles aside he should still have outqualified Bottas's Williams.

He passed his fellow Finn at the start but messed up the restart and also got outfoxed by Hamilton. Though he recovered to the car's natural level, he was generally underwhelming and made too many errors.

19 FELIPE MASSA
Williams-Mercedes FW38

Start: 4th
Finish: 5th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/soft/super-soft)

Rating: 6

Massa conceded to making a bit of a mess of Q3, where he lacked grip and qualified well adrift of team-mate Bottas, but at least avoided being upstaged by any slower cars.

His race was solid enough, and he brought home another decent points haul, but Massa admitted he wasn't at Bottas's level here. He trailed the sister Williams by 13 seconds before making that extra pitstop.

77 VALTTERI BOTTAS
Williams-Mercedes FW38

Start: 2nd
Finish: 4th
Strategy: 1 stop (super-soft/soft)

Rating: 9

Bottas always seems to go well on this circuit, and was rightly delighted with an impressive qualifying lap that allowed him to split the two Ferraris on the timesheet.

He won an early battle of wits with Raikkonen, despite getting outmanoeuvred at the start, but made things a bit too easy for Hamilton later on. You can't argue with his speed or the result, though.

3 DANIEL RICCIARDO
Red Bull-Renault RB12

Start: 5th
Finish: 11th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/medium/soft)

Rating: 8

Ricciardo felt the Williamses were out of reach here, so he was fairly content to qualify just behind Massa.

He was an innocent victim of the Kvyat/Vettel collision at Turn 2 after the start, and considering he lost what Christian Horner called a "massive amount" of downforce to unfixable sidepod and floor damage, racing back to within eight seconds of the points represented a fine effort.

26 DANIIL KVYAT
Red Bull-Renault RB12

Start: 8th
Finish: 15th
Strategy: 1 stop (super-soft/medium)

Rating: 4

Kvyat struggled more than Ricciardo to get the front tyres working in qualifying, so understeered to a time more than three tenths adrift. His Saturday form has got better, but it's still lacking overall.

His race was a disaster, featuring two tangles with Vettel's Ferrari within metres of each other - for which he was rightly penalised severely. Was unfairly criticised in China. Not this time.

11 SERGIO PEREZ
Force India-Mercedes VJM09

Start: 6th
Finish: 9th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/soft/soft)

Rating: 7

Splitting the Red Bulls in qualifying was impressive from Perez, and the fact he lapped in 1m37.2s three times in Q2 and Q3 suggests he couldn't have done much more.

He recovered from a puncture picked up during the first-lap contretemps to score points, but arguably should have made more of his fresher rubber later on to possibly beat the slower cars of Grosjean and Magnussen.

27 NICO HULKENBERG
Force India-Mercedes VJM09

Start: 13th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (soft/retired)

Rating: 5

Hulkenberg struggled to get comfortable with his car all weekend, and felt Friday night set-up changes backfired when he qualified nowhere near his team-mate.

He shunted at the first corner of last year's race here, which was totally his fault. He crashed at the first corner of this year's race here, which totally wasn't. A whack from Gutierrez meant an early end to a terrible event for Hulkenberg.

20 KEVIN MAGNUSSEN
Renault RS16

Start: 17th
Finish: 7th
Strategy: 1 stop (super-soft/soft)

Rating: 9

Magnussen was disappointed with qualifying, where he ended up well adrift of the Haas cars having split them in final practice. The fact he only found three tenths between sessions was odd considering the progression of others.

Nevertheless he broke Renault's 2016 scoring duck with a superb race - dodging the first-lap chaos, jumping Grosjean in the pits and holding firm against the advances of quicker cars.

30 JOLYON PALMER
Renault RS16

Start: 18th
Finish: 13th
Strategy: 1 stop (super-soft/soft)

Rating: 6

Palmer came to Russia feeling lost and practice began badly here too, but a floor change transformed his fortunes and he qualified within a tenth of Magnussen.

The race gradually got away from him. Palmer was within a second of Magnussen before the restart, but came off worst in the midfield sparring contests and ultimately trailed the sister car by six places and nearly 25s.

33 MAX VERSTAPPEN
Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR11

Start: 9th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: 1 stop (super-soft/soft/retired)

Rating: 8

Verstappen was delighted to make the top 10 in qualifying again, reckoning he couldn't have done much better. Sainz suspected 1m37.3s or 1m37.4s was possible for STR, though, and the fact Verstappen failed to improve between Q2 and Q3 suggests he possibly underperformed a little there with his 1m37.5s and could have started a spot or two higher.

The only bad aspect of the race was his start. Verstappen was on for an easy sixth place when his Ferrari engine failed.

55 CARLOS SAINZ JR
Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR11

Start: 11th
Finish: 12th
Strategy: 1 stop (super-soft/soft)

Rating: 6

Sainz felt a delay behind Kvyat's Red Bull cost him a Q3 shot. He started well, but Turn 2 debris went through the Toro Rosso's sidepod, costing him power and downforce.

He got back into the mix after "a thousand" switch changes and an early pitstop, but was always playing catch-up. The Spaniard picked up a penalty for forcing Palmer off track and also gave up a place to Button late-on.

9 MARCUS ERICSSON
Sauber-Ferrari C35

Start: 22nd
Finish: 14th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/super-soft/super-soft)

Rating: 7

After a strong start to the season this grand prix began disappointingly for Ericsson, who was "nowhere" on low fuel and qualified last, struggling to generate front grip on Sochi's particularly smooth surface.

The race was a lot, lot better though. He was delayed by the Hulkenberg/Gutierrez clash at Turn 2 but drove very effectively thereafter to finish less than two seconds behind Palmer's Renault.

12 FELIPE NASR
Sauber-Ferrari C35

Start: 19th
Finish: 16th
Strategy: 1 stop (super-soft/soft)

Rating: 6

After constant complaints about the bad handling of his C35 over the first three races, Sauber furnished Nasr with a new chassis in Russia and he immediately felt happier, outqualifying Ericsson by half a second.

He rose to 12th early in the race but suffered a slow front puncture that derailed his strategy. Perhaps Sauber should have switched to a two-stopper rather than clinging on.

14 FERNANDO ALONSO
McLaren-Honda MP4-31

Start: 14th
Finish: 6th
Strategy: 1 stop (super-soft/soft)

Rating: 8

Alonso wasn't quite at Button's level in qualifying here, trailing his team-mate by a tenth, but he enjoyed a fine race - circumnavigating the first-lap shenanigans and chasing carefully after Verstappen's Toro Rosso until it went bang.

Sixth was comfortable in the end, as Alonso bagged his first points of 2016. The only frustration was the need to aggressively save fuel on account of Honda inefficiency.

22 JENSON BUTTON
McLaren-Honda MP4-31

Start: 12th
Finish: 10th
Strategy: 1 stop (super-soft/soft)

Rating: 7

Button came within a tenth of making Q3 - the closest McLaren has been yet in 2016 - and outqualified his team-mate.

He got hung out to dry on the outside line as Vettel shunted at Turn 3 on the first lap, which meant he was always fighting back into points contention. At least he scored his point on the road by passing the penalised Sainz two laps from the finish.

88 RIO HARYANTO
Manor-Mercedes MRT-05

Start: 21st
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (super-soft/retired)

Rating: 6

Haryanto was much, much closer to team-mate Wehrlein here than he had been in China, qualifying within a tenth of the Mercedes junior and feeling some set-up tweaks and better engagement with the team since Shanghai have improved his form.

Made "probably my best" start of the season in the race, but unfortunately got wiped out in the Gutierrez/Hulkenberg incident, so that was that.

94 PASCAL WEHRLEIN
Manor-Mercedes MRT-05

Start: 20th
Finish: 18th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/soft/super-soft)

Rating: 6

The peculiar challenge of getting the front tyres to work correctly here seemed to perturb Wehrlein, who was disappointed to qualify nearly four tenths behind the best Sauber.

He was a bit wild in the race as he tried vainly to carry the fight to Nasr, and chewed up his second set of tyres and had to pit again. Game over.

8 ROMAIN GROSJEAN
Haas-Ferrari VF-16

Start: 15th
Finish: 8th
Strategy: 1 stop (super-soft/soft)

Rating: 7

Grosjean's unhappiness continued in Russia, where Haas struggled to get the tyres working well in cool weather. He enjoyed a strong first lap to vault into the top eight, but lost out to Magnussen's Renault in the pits.

He couldn't quite find a way back past, so had to work hard repelling Perez's Force India instead. A solid drive and a decent result ultimately.

21 ESTEBAN GUTIERREZ
Haas-Ferrari VF-16

Start: 16th
Finish: 17th
Strategy: 1 stop (soft/medium)

Rating: 5

Gutierrez finally enjoyed a clean build-up and qualified within six hundredths of Grosjean, as Haas occupied a no-man's land between McLaren and Renault.

The mess came in the race this time, where punting Hulkenberg into a spin at Turn 2 proved very costly. A drive-through penalty set Gutierrez back and presaged a race of fruitless chasing on the medium tyre. One to forget.