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Valtteri Bottas has won his first ever Grand Prix after holding off Sebastian Vettel in the latter stages of the race and becomes the fifth driver from Finland to become a Grand Prix winner.
Bottas started the race from third on the grid but was leading by turn two after launching well off the line and using the slipstream of pole-sitter Vettel to take the lead.
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Vettel had to settle for second place but still leads the championship as Lewis Hamilton failed to make the podium. Vettel's teammate Kimi Raikkonen crossed the line in third to take his first podium finish of the season.
Hamilton struggled from the get-go and failed to keep up with the cars in front of him. He finished almost 30 seconds behind his teammate, unable to get the car hooked up.
BREAKING: @ValtteriBottas claims his maiden ___Escaped_link_69888d811c64c___ win ?? ___Escaped_link_69888d811c64d___ ?? pic.twitter.com/AeYFVpJ2L8
— Formula 1 (@F1) ___Escaped_link_69888d811c64f___
The tension built up mightily as the drivers looked to the lights, but the start had to be aborted due to a stoppage on track for Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard failed to even start the race after his car hit more reliability issues.
The safety car made an appearance on lap 1 as Romain Grosjean and Jolyon Palmer came to blows at turn two. The Briton appeared to turn into Grosjean, and the incident will be investigated post-race.
After the safety car peeled away, the race claimed its fourth retirement as Daniel Ricciardo was forced to return to the pits due to a fire on the right rear. It wasn't all doom and gloom for Red Bull however as Max Verstappen claimed fifth position for the team.
Five second time penalties were handed out to Kevin Magnussen and Stoffel Vandoorne, as they failed to respect track limits at turn two. Drivers were required to weave through two polystyrene stumps if they ran off track, which both drivers failed to do.
Hamilton began to report that he was struggling with temperatures and couldn't close up onto the back of Raikkonen, who was running in third. Up at the front, Bottas was extending his gap as the pit-stops looked close.
Pascal Wehrlein pitted at the end of Lap 1 to rid himself of the super soft tyres and fitted the ultra soft compound. A second set of the ultra soft compound was applied to his car on lap 22 as the field prepared for their pitstops.
Bottas then hit traffic and lost time to Vettel behind. With the pitstops looking to be very decisive in the race, Bottas couldn't afford to lose much time and boxed two laps later. The stop was clean and re-emerged in free air and looked set to take the victory.
The Force India's then came into the pits and got away cleanly, finishing the race in a magnificent sixth and seventh position to tighten their hold on fourth place in the constructor standings.
Raikkonen and Hamilton pitted in the following laps while Vettel stayed out and didn't pull into his box until lap 34, quite a number of laps after Bottas. He too came out in clean air and had much fresher tyres to hunt down the Finn in front.
Vettel did start to catch Bottas and the race came to a huge climax, but Vettel failed to get by, leaving Bottas to take his first ever career victory in Formula 1.
Nico Hulkenberg crossed the line in eighth to capture more points for Renault while Massa continued his strong season, finishing ninth. Taking the final points paying position was Carlos Sainz in the Toro Rosso.
A first ever win in #F1 ?
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 30, 2017
? BOT: "**** me. Quite a while eh?!? 81 races. But worth the wait!"#RussianGP ?? pic.twitter.com/Fw4xTQ2jSv
Fergal Walsh
Sochi Autodrom - 30 April 2017
Azerbaijan Grand Prix
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calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Very strong performance from Bottas.