WHY BOTTAS WAS DESTINED TO WIN THE RUSSIAN GP

Unusually for a Russian Grand Prix, this 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 Mercedes’ world champion. For a start, he would be heading off the line on the red-walled soft tyres. Immediately behind him, Max Verstappen’s Red Bull and the Mercedes of 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 at Sochi, being in front through such a lengthy acceleration zone into the right-hander puts the leader 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