Formula One visits the Sochi Autodrom for the fifth time as we head into the sixteenth race weekend of the year. Here are all the stats you need ahead of the 2018 Russian Grand Prix!
?? SOCHI RACE WINNERS
There have been four previous Russian Grands Prix. From those four, there have been three different winners.
Lewis Hamilton has the most wins here with two. He’s the only driver to have taken more than one victory at the track. Mercedes are the only team to have won here.
Two of the three previous Russian Grand Prix winners are on the 2018 grid. Aside from Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas took his maiden F1 victory at the track last season. Nico Rosberg is the only winner of this race to not be present on this year’s grid.
The longest streak of different winners here is three, with a different driver having won the past three races at the track.
The largest win margin at the track came in 2016, when Nico Rosberg won by 25.022 seconds. The smallest win margin came last year, when Valtteri Bottas won by just 0.617 seconds.
The average win margin at this track is 11.312 seconds.
?? ON THE PODIUM IN RUSSIA
In its four year history, just six drivers have previously finished on the podium here. Five of the six podium finishers are on the 2018 grid. Lewis Hamilton has the most podium finishers of any driver in Russia, having finished on the rostrum three times. Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas all have two podiums apiece, while Sergio Perez has finished in the top three once in Sochi.
?? SOCHI POLESITTERS
Three drivers have taken a pole position at the Sochi Autodrom.
Nico Rosberg has the most poles at the track, having started from pole twice – in 2015 and 2016. Mercedes are the team with the most pole positions here. They’ve started from the front on three occasions.
Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel are the only drivers on the current grid to have started from pole previously in Russia. They have one pole each at the track.
The smallest pole margin at the track came last yeat, when Sebastian Vettel set the fastest time by 0.059 seconds. The largest pole margin came in 2016, when Nico Rosberg took the top spot by 0.706 seconds.
The average pole margin at the Sochi Autodrom is 0.321 seconds.
?? SATURDAY TO SUNDAY
Two of the four races in Sochi have been won from pole, while all but one have been won from the front row of the grid. 2017 is the only time the race hasn’t been won from the front row – Valtteri Bottas won from a third place start.
?? SUNDAY STATS
The Safety Car has made an appearance in three of the four Grands Prix held at the Sochi Autodrom. The most Safety Car periods in a single race at the track is two, which happened in 2015.
There is yet to be a rain-affected Russian Grand Prix.
The four races here have run for a similar length of time, with the longest and shortest races at the track separated by just over nine minutes. The shortest race was the 2017 event, which Valtteri Bottas won in a time of 1:28:08.743. The longest race was in 2015, in which there were two Safety Car periods. That race lasted for 1:37:11.024
The most drivers to have finished a Grand Prix here was in 2014, when nineteen drivers saw the chequered flag. The fewest finishers came in the following year, when just thirteen cars made it to the end of the race. On average, seventeen cars reach the end of the Russian Grand Prix.
There has never been a red-flagged race at the Sochi Autodrom.
?? CHAMPIONSHIP GLORY
There has never been a World Champion crowned here, but the Russian Grand Prix has seen Mercedes crowned as Constructors’ Champions in both 2014 and 2015.
The winner of the Russian Grand Prix has gone on to win the championship in three of the four years in which it has been held.