SOCHI, May 2. /TASS/. The 2016 Formula One Russia Grand Prix in the resort city of Sochi proved to be a nice race with an obvious dominance of German racer from team Mercedes Nico Rosberg, F1 famed Scottish racer David Coulthard told TASS on Monday.
"It was a nice race, no big drama with an obviously strong performance from Nico Rosberg," Coulthard said in an interview with TASS. "Plenty of incidents and accidents, so hopefully it was an entertaining race on television."
Team Mercedes German pilot Nico Rosberg secured on Sunday his record 7th straight Formula One win after leaving the rest of the drivers behind on a sunny afternoon in Russia’s Sochi.
Rosberg clocked the best lap time of 1 minute 35.417 seconds in the qualification session on Saturday to take the pole position and starting from the top of the grid line on Sunday he maintained the strong lead throughout the race to take the top step of the Sochi GP podium.
The opening lap of the Sochi GP on Sunday saw a mess of cars with the main actors on the stage team Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat of Russia and German racer from team Ferrari Sebastian Vettel. Kvyat eventually was penalized for a 10-second stop in the pit lane for causing an emergency situation at the track.
Qualified on Saturday in the 8th position, Kvyat was aggressive during the opening lap on Sunday and hit four-time F1 Champion Sebastian Vettel in the back of his car twice forcing the German driver out of the race.
After driving a scooter himself with a race marshal sitting behind him to the team box, Vettel told journalists that "I just saw the footage, no way I could have done anything else."
Following the second impact with Kvyat’s car Vettel crashed in the rail damaging his Ferrari and was forced to retire from the race.
Commenting on the incident, Kvyat said that rear brakes of his car blocked in the second turn and then it was too hard to stop the car at that moment.
Then, Kvyat added, in the third high-speed turn everyone began braking their cars to his surprise and Vettel was in front of him again.
"I hit him in the back and he had to withdraw from the race," Kvyat said. "I do apologize to him."
Commenting on the incident between Russia’s Kvyat and titled racer Vettel, Coulthard said it "was just a coincidence rather than because they just don’t like each other."
"It is racing sometimes. Daniil made a mistake in turn two and I think turn three left it lot for making him difficult to avoid the contact," Coulthard told TASS.
Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton, who won the two previous Sochi GP races, finished in the second place on Sunday afternoon behind the German racer with over 12 seconds gap.
Ferraris’ Kimi Raikkonen finished in the third place after team Mercedes pilots. Russian racer Kvyat completed his home track race in the 15th place.
This year Russia held its FIA Formula One racing Grand Prix for the first time in spring, namely on April 29-May 1, as compared with the two previous races held in autumn of 2014 and 2015 in Sochi.