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It was Flavio Briatore who years ago said that Kimi Raikkonen made Mika Hakkinen sound like Jerry Lewis, but if Kimi is indeed a man of few words, sometimes he uses them to express a simple truth, as at Sochi last Sunday: "We [Ferrari] lost out at the start - and then not a lot happened after that..."
Fortunately, a comatose Russian Grand Prix was resuscitated by its tense closing laps, but the circuit at Sochi, which reminds one more than anything of the now defunct Valencia, does not represent F1 circuit guru Hermann Tilke's finest hour. There is one decent corner - a quick left-hander that goes on for ever - but mainly it is long straights and pedestrian 90-degree turns.
That said, something about it has always brought out the best in Valtteri Bottas, and last weekend he was scintillating, outpacing Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton on both Saturday and Sunday, and - rather against expectation, given Ferrari's lockout of the front row - getting the better of Sebastian Vettel and Raikkonen in the race.
