Lewis Hamilton clinched the 100th win of his career at the Russian Grand Prix this afternoon.
Lando Norris, who led for most of the race opted to refuse a set of intermediate tyres as the rain began to fall in Sochi with 4 laps to go, and ended up spinning off the track – allowing Hamilton to strike.
At the chequered flag, the Red Bull of Max Verstappen came home in second and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in third – joining the British world champion on the podium.
Verstappen started today’s race at the back of the grid after his combined penalty from an engine switch, and his part in a collision with Lewis Hamilton in Monza last time out.
The Dutchman fought his way up the field today and came away with second step this Sunday.
Speaking after the race, Lewis Hamilton told Sky Sports F1; “What a race the weather provided. It’s taken a long time to get to 100 and I wasn’t sure it would come.
“Lando did such an amazing job, he had incredible pace and is doing such a great job for McLaren. It was bittersweet to see my old team ahead and they’re doing fantastically.
“The team made a great call right at the end. I didn’t want to let Lando go and I didn’t know what the weather was doing. I’m incredibly grateful to all these men and women here and back at the factory.
“Going to bed last night I was not the happiest with the job I did yesterday. I watched the replay and they were subtle mistakes but not ideal.
“I was so determined when I woke up this morning and I was determined to just do the best job I could. I lost a lot of ground at the start trying to stay out of trouble.
“Max must’ve done a really great job to come up to second from last. We’ve got our work cut out.
“It would’ve been tough to get past Lando unless we came up to some traffic or he made a mistake, which he hasn’t been doing, so then the rain came and it was very opportunistic.”
Max Verstappen then said; “It was pretty tricky on the in lap to make the call to go to inters. I think we decided at the right time to pit. To come from last to second is very very good.
“The race itself was not very easy as it was very difficult to pass and once you got stuck it was very easy to damage your tyres. The rain helped us to make that last jump.
“With the penalty we had, to only lose one spot basically is definitely not too bad. When I woke up this morning I definitely didn’t expect this result.
“From the back, a lot of things happened on the first lap and first stint. We managed all of that very good and the crucial call to go to the inters worked out.”
More to follow.
