Hamilton fastest in final Russian practice

SOCHI, Russia — Formula One leader Lewis Hamilton was fastest in Saturday’s final practice for the inaugural Russian Grand Prix as Mercedes continued to dominate a weekend likely to seal the constructors’ championship.

Hamilton, who has a 10-point advantage over German teammate Nico Rosberg after winning the last three races, produced the fastest lap yet of the new Sochi circuit with a best time of 1 minute, 38.726 seconds.

The 2008 champion spun late in the session at the penultimate corner, but escaped without damage.

“It was a tremendous lap, he seems to extract the maximum out of the car at the moment,” Mercedes motorsport head Toto Wolff said.

“Somehow, Lewis seem to nail it on first lap, Nico seems to struggle a bit more, but this is just practice,” the German told the BBC.

Rosberg was second fastest, 0.290 slower, on a warm and bright morning at the 5.8km track that snakes around the Black Sea resort’s imposing Olympic Park venues used for this year’s Winter Games.

Hamilton, chasing his ninth win of the season on Sunday, was also fastest on Friday, although Rosberg was quicker in the morning.

Finland’s Valtteri Bottas was third for Williams in a session that was briefly halted after the McLaren of Danish rookie Kevin Magnussen stopped on track with a gearbox problem that will bring a five-place grid penalty.

Red Bull’s Australian Daniel Ricciardo, the only driver other than the Mercedes duo to win this season, was fourth fastest.

Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado failed to set a lap time with mechanics working on his Lotus.

Safety 

Formula One is planning to impose automatic speed limits as part of safety measures to prevent any recurrence of the sort of accident that has left French driver Jules Bianchi fighting for his life in Japan.

Race director Charlie Whiting told reporters at the Russian Grand Prix that he would meet teams on Saturday to discuss the proposals.

They included fitting “skirts” to recovery vehicles, the cranes and tractors used to remove stricken cars, to protect against the type of impact suffered by Bianchi when he crashed into one at Suzuka last Sunday.

The 25-year-old Marussia driver remains in a critical but stable condition in hospital after surgery for a severe brain injury.

Whiting showed footage of the crash to reporters at a lengthy briefing conducted with International Automobile Federation (FIA) President Jean Todt and Formula One medical officers.

The images showed marshals waving double yellow flags, the most extreme measure before a safety car is introduced, after Adrian Sutil had crashed his Sauber a lap before Bianchi lost control at the same place on the wet track.

Waved yellow flags mean a driver must slow and be prepared to stop if necessary.

Whiting said Bianchi had slowed as required, without divulging by how much, and indicated some had shed less speed than others.

He had come to the conclusion, he added, that it was “probably better to take the decision to slow down away from the drivers” in future.

Whiting indicated this could be done through what amounted to a virtual safety car — using the existing GPS-controlled systems to slow the entire field without actually bringing the safety car onto the track.

In more extreme circumstances the safety car would be deployed as usual. 

Complete clarity 

“I think there are some things to learn,” said Whiting of the Suzuka accident. “We want to engage with all the teams and drivers to make sure we come up with good, sound and well thought through ideas.”

Whiting said they would seek “a way of trying to impose for want of a better expression a speed limit. It probably won’t be a speed limit as such but there will be I believe a way of controlling speed with complete certainty and complete clarity”.

He added that it was “highly unlikely” anything could be introduced this weekend.

“We have to ensure it works the same way on all the cars,” explained Whiting. “We will be exercising extreme caution as always.”

The Briton also clarified the events at Suzuka, from the moment the tractor was deployed to Bianchi being rushed in an ambulance with a police escort to hospital.

Whiting said the decision to bring the tractor on had been taken by race control and they had not considered it necessary to deploy the safety car immediately.

There was no immediate evidence of any mechanical fault being to blame for Bianchi losing control.

Whiting dismissed a post-race assertion by Brazilian Felipe Massa that the Williams driver had been screaming for the race to be stopped before the crash as the rain fell and the light faded.

He said Massa had merely informed the team that track conditions were getting worse.

Todt, a former Ferrari team principal, said lessons had to be learned “and we will because we cannot be faced with such a situation again. Each life is very important”.

Bianchi’s manager is Todt’s son Nicolas and the FIA president said he had himself known him since the driver was 15.

“My son believed, believes, a lot in Jules,” he said. “It has been very tough, it is very tough.”