Russian Grand Prix driver ratings

44 Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes F1 W08

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

Rating: 5

"One of those weekends" for Hamilton, who struggled worst amid Mercedes' ultra-soft tyre troubles and was behind his team-mate Bottas in every session. The 0.478 seconds qualifying deficit was massive given they ran similar set-ups.

Engine overheating spoiled the first part of Hamilton's race, but regardless this was the first event of 2017 where he was clearly second best within Mercedes.

77 Valtteri Bottas
Mercedes F1 W08

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

Rating: 9

Bottas did a much better job than Hamilton coping with Mercedes' tyre difficulties at Sochi. He could perhaps be faulted for narrowly missing pole after topping Q2, but came of age in the race with a brilliantly opportunistic drive.

Though he was fortunate to survive that huge lock-up at Turn 13, Bottas managed the pressure from Vettel expertly at the end.

3 Daniel Ricciardo
Red Bull-Renault RB13

Start: 5th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (ultra-soft/retired)

Rating: 8

Ricciardo struggled in practice, but switching tyre-preparation strategy in Q3 seemed to do the trick and he qualified as high up as the Red Bull merited.

He made a good start but got trapped by Raikkonen and Hamilton on the outside through Turn 1, before a brake fire curtailed his chances of fighting back against Massa and Verstappen.

33 Max Verstappen
Red Bull-Renault RB13

Start: 7th
Finish: 5th
Strategy: 1 stop (ultra-soft/super/soft)

Rating: 8

Verstappen seemed to suffer a similar, but less severe, case of Hamilton's weak rear-end illness in Q3, where Red Bull's Dutchman ended up behind Massa's Williams despite looking stronger than Ricciardo through practice.

He made up for that with a typically feisty first lap, before settling into a lonely race where he was so under-occupied he could watch the lead battle on the TV screens.

5 Sebastian Vettel
Ferrari SF70H

Start: 1st
Finish: 2nd
Strategy: 1 stop (ultra-soft/super-soft)

Rating: 9

Vettel did an excellent job to steal in ahead of Bottas and Raikkonen and claim pole with an expertly controlled lap under pressure in Q3.

He was probably powerless to resist Bottas at the start of the race, but came back brilliantly at the end. Slight hesitation behind Massa curtailed a thrilling showdown, but this was still another great drive.

7 Kimi Raikkonen
Ferrari SF70H

Start: 2nd
Finish: 3rd
Strategy: 1 stop (ultra-soft/super-soft)

Rating: 8

Raikkonen couldn't quite deliver a clean lap at the crucial moment in Q3, but this was his best effort of 2017 so far.

He paid for another bad start in the race, where he was almost two tenths per lap slower than Vettel on average. Fastest lap by almost half a second shows Raikkonen can be rapid, but he still lacks consistency.

11 Sergio Perez
Force India-Mercedes VJM10

Start: 9th
Finish: 6th
Strategy: 1 stop (ultra-soft/super-soft)

Rating: 9

Perez is driving very well this year, in a car that is not the best among the tight midfield group.

He recovered from an error on his first Q2 run to make the top-10 shootout and drove a decent race, jumping Hulkenberg at the start and briefly challenging Ricciardo and Massa too. Perez benefited from their problems to finish sixth, but it was a strong performance nonetheless.

31 Esteban Ocon
Force India-Mercedes VJM10

Start: 10th
Finish: 7th
Strategy: 1 stop (ultra-soft/super-soft)

Rating: 8

Ocon feels the post-Bahrain GP test has helped him better integrate himself with Force India and the result was his strongest qualifying performance so far in 2017, making Q3 and lapping within a tenth of Perez.

He wasn't quite on Perez's level in the race, but didn't finish far behind. Overall this was Ocon's strongest weekend of 2017 so far.

18 Lance Stroll
Williams-Mercedes FW40

Start: 10th
Finish: 11th
Strategy: 1 stop (ultra-soft/super-soft)

Rating: 6

Stroll's difficulties getting the Pirelli tyres to work properly continued here and he was nearly a second off Massa in qualifying, struggling to put clean laps together.

The rookie needed a clean race, but he spun over the kerb at Turn 7 while racing Hulkenberg on lap one. His recovery to 11th was decent enough and he finished at least, but points went begging.

19 Felipe Massa
Williams-Mercedes FW40

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

Rating: 8

Another strong effort from Massa, who is clearly revelling in this year's Williams and being the team's lead driver.

He perhaps should have beaten both Red Bulls in qualifying after being quicker than Verstappen in final practice, and he lost out to the Dutchman at the start, but was on for sixth easily until a slow puncture (his second of the race!) forced an unscheduled stop.

2 Stoffel Vandoorne
McLaren-Honda MCL32

Start: 20th
Finish: 14th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/ultra-soft/ultra-soft)

Rating: 7

Another tough weekend for Vandoorne, who struggled with the tyres and qualified more than seven tenths behind Alonso. Engine penalties sent him to the back of the grid, but he jumped the Saubers early on and kept pace with Stroll's Williams for a time.

Vandoorne did what he could in a difficult car and at least made the start this time.

14 Fernando Alonso
McLaren-Honda MCL32

Start: DNS (15th)
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (ultra-soft/retired)

Rating: 9

Alonso called the qualifying performance that put him into Q2 again "unbelievable", and he did his usual excellent job capitalising on others' struggles - this time Palmer and the Haas drivers in Q1.

He reckoned the Honda engine was costing 2.5s on the straights, which would have meant a long and arduous race but for the ERS failure that forced him out before the start.

26 Daniil Kvyat
Toro Rosso-Renault STR12

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

Rating: 7

Kvyat said the car never felt good through practice, but a set-up correction for qualifying put him back in the mix and he qualified within two hundredths of his team-mate.

His home race unravelled thanks to a bad start, a poorly-timed pitstop, and a subsequent "mess" of getting lapped by the leaders. Not a race to remember, except for his decent pace over the final laps.

55 Carlos Sainz Jr
Toro Rosso-Renault STR12

Start: 14th
Finish: 10th
Strategy: 1 stop (ultra-soft/super-soft)

Rating: 7

Sainz wasn't comfortable on Friday, but "a lot of changes" brought the car back to a feeling he was familiar with and he was more competitive on Saturday.

He mysteriously lacked grip on his second Q2 run so missed Q3 by a couple of tenths, but jumped Kvyat and Stroll on lap one, Magnussen in the pits, and stroked it home while carefully managing a suspension problem.

8 Romain Grosjean
Haas-Ferrari VF-17

Start: 19th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (ultra-soft/retired)

Rating: 3

An utterly woeful weekend for Grosjean, who couldn't get comfortable in the Haas, struggling with oversteer in some places and severe brake locking and understeer in others.

He was nowhere near Magnussen's pace in any session and anticipated a "long and painful" race, but that lasted only a few metres before he collided with Palmer at Turn 2 and crashed out.

20 Kevin Magnussen
Haas-Ferrari VF-17

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

Rating: 7

Magnussen suffered much less than Grosjean with the balance of the car, but scraped through Q1 behind Alonso. He made a better job of Q2, where he was within a tenth of qualifying 11th.

He should have scored a point in the race really, but paid dearly for not following the correct rejoining procedure after running wide to avoid the Turn 2 melee after the start.

27 Nico Hulkenberg
Renault RS17

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

Rating: 7

Hulkenberg qualified strongly again - within two tenths of the faster cars of Massa and Verstappen and ahead of the rest of the midfield.

He dropped behind both Force Indias on the first lap, which cost him a top-six finish. Renault put Hulkenberg on a long first stint to try to fight back at the end. He homed in on the cars ahead, but the need to save fuel spoiled his fun.

30 Jolyon Palmer
Renault RS17

Start: 16th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (ultra-soft/retired)

Rating: 4

Palmer's nightmare start to 2017 continued in Russia, where an exhaust problem wrecked his chassis on Friday and a mysterious power loss spoiled final practice.

He crashed under pressure trying to recover in Q1, which meant another major repair job, before an unfortunate collision with Grosjean at the start of the race brought the curtain down on a terrible event.

9 Marcus Ericsson
Sauber-Ferrari C36

Start: 18th
Finish: 15th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/ultra-soft/ultra-soft)

Rating: 7

A pretty decent weekend overall for Ericsson, who was a shade under two tenths slower than Wehrlein in qualifying and endured a "terrible" first 10 laps of the race, but thereafter improved things dramatically.

He jumped Wehrlein in the pits with help from a relatively strong in-lap and chased after Vandoorne. Finishing within three seconds of the McLaren-Honda was a good effort.

94 Pascal Wehrlein
Sauber-Ferrari C36

Start: 17th
Finish: 16th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/ultra-soft/ultra-soft)

Rating: 6

A puzzling event for Wehrlein, who was the quicker of the Sauber drivers in qualifying and for the first 18 laps of the race.

He lost a heap of time around the second pitstop phase, saying floor damage cost him downforce, but his pace picked up again for 10 laps or so afterwards, before tailing off really badly over the final dozen.