The 2017 Russian Grand Prix is in the books and Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas won his first-ever Grand Prix, edging out Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel for the victory with Vettel’s teammate, Kimi Raikkonen taking a distant third to finish out the podium.
After all was said and done, the race essentially boiled down to a single maneuver – that of Bottas slipping past pole-sitter Vettel on the first turn of the race – enabling Bottas to get clean air and take command of the race from the get-go, only allowing Vettel to have a chance late in the race via a late tire-changing pit strategy. Bottas clearly gets the three points this week while Vettel gets the runner-up two points for an otherwise fine effort and ASN awards a tie for third place between impressive rookie Esteban Ocon and suffering rookie Stoffel Vandoorne – Ocon for consistently getting points and Vandoorne for successfully getting his McLaren to finish a race [something his teammate, Fernando Alonso, has been unable to do so far this season].
The Pastor Maldonado Driving School Award is also a tie as both Romain Grosjean of Haas and Jolyon Palmer of Renault were equally at fault for creating a collision that knocked each of their cars out of the race on the first lap.
The Kimi Raikkonen “Leave Me Alone! I Know What I’m Doing!” Award must go to Alonso for his declaration that he would be eating ice cream after his McLaren was unable to even get out of the warm-up laps stage of the race at the 2017 Russian Grand Prix.
The Bernie Ecclestone Doofus Award is looking like it might be a runaway for the namesake as Ecclestone once again said something stupid, this time, admitting that he overcharged for various F1 venues during his tenure as the chief crusty barnacle in charge – not exactly a ground-breaking revelation but certainly a pompous ass-like statement indicating [once again] that he was not interesting in growing the sport unless there was money in it for him.
2017 ASN Formula One Driver Standings [after Russian Grand Prix]
1] Sebastian Vettel – 10 points
2] Valtteri Bottas – five
3] Lewis Hamilton – three
4] Sergio Perez/Esteban Ocon – two
6] Romain Grosjean/Stoffel Vandoorne/Max Verstappen – one
2017 Pastor Maldonado Driving School Award [after Russian Grand Prix]
1] Grosjean/Kevin Magnussen/Jolyon Palmer/Perez/Carlos Sainz, Jr. – one
2017 Kimi Raikkonen “Leave Me Alone! I Know What I’m Doing!” Award [after Russian Grand Prix]
1] Fernando Alonso – two
2] Mercedes pit [Bottas]/Red Bull pit [Verstappen]
2017 Bernie Ecclestone Doofus Award [after Russian Grand Prix]
1] Bernie Ecclestone – two
2] Australian GP officials/Mercedes marketing