Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and Kimmi Raikkonen own the front row at Russian Grand Prix

Sebastian Vettel takes pole position for the 2017 Russian Grand Prix in Sochi with team mate Kimmi Raikkonen in second. The Mercedes of Hamilton and Bottas take row two.

It’s been a bit of a yo-yo 2017 at the top of F1, with Vettel for Ferrari and Hamilton for Mercedes more or less sharing honours in the opening three races. But the 2017 Russian Grand Prix is looking very good for Ferrari.

Sebastian Vettel has taken pole position for Ferrari in qualifying, with team mate Kimmi Raikkonen in second spot followed by the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas. And there was just 0.1 seconds separating the top three.

Hamilton, who had seemed off the pace throughout qualifying, took fourth place, but he was getting on for half a second slower than his new team mate as Bottas out-qualified the former world champion for the second race in a row.

Bottas did well to get so close to the Ferraris as they looked to have a handle on qualifying throughout, but having Hamilton back in fourth could make for an interesting race if he can find enough pace.

Behind the dominant Ferraris and Mercedes, Red Bull were best of the rest with Daniel Ricciardo in fifth spot – albeit more than 1.5 seconds off the pace – and it was a good run by Felipe Massa to take Williams in to sixth, followed by Max Verstappen in the second Red Bull.

Nico Hulkenberg took eighth for Renault, and the Fore Indias filled the last two top ten place with Perez and Ocon respectively. 

But it was another bad day at the office for McLaren, with Fernando Alonso managing only 15th – and complaining loudly that he has so little power he was going backwards on the straights – and team mate Stoffel Vandoorne putting his McLaren in to 17th for the race.

Tomorrow’s race does look like it’s Ferrari’s to lose.