Lewis Hamilton could retain his world championship at the next Grand Prix in the United States after taking a back to back win in Sochi. The 30-year old took the lead from his team-mate after he was forced to retire after throttle problems early in the race.<\/p>\n
Hamilton\u2019s victory helped his Mercedes team to retain their constructor\u2019s championship by 166 over Ferrari. Sebastian Vettel was second with Sergio Perez claiming third following a crash between Kimi Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas on the final lap.<\/p>\n
Bottas was hit while Raikkonen tried to pass his fellow countryman at turn four. Raikkonen tried to limp home to try to keep the constructors championship open for America. This gave Perez Force India\u2019s first podium since Bahrain last year.<\/p>\n
The clash of the Fins wasn\u2019t the only drama after a spin by Force India\u2019s Nico Hulkenberg spun off collecting the Sauber of Marcus Ericsson at turn two taking them both out on the spot and bringing the safety car out. Max Verstappen limped home in tenth place after he was also caught in the first lap action.<\/p>\n
The next accident came after Romain Grosjean was caught out on the marbles at turn three which sent the Frenchman off slamming into the wall shattering his Lotus. Grosjean walked away from the shattered Lotus which took a safety car to clear up.<\/p>\n
Hamilton took control on the restart opening his gap and despite concern over \u2018rear wing performance\u2019 remained in control. The brit now requires nine points more than Vettel and two more than Rosberg to take his third world title in Austin in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lewis Hamilton could retain his world championship at the next Grand Prix in the United States after taking a back to back win in Sochi. The 30-year old took the lead from his team-mate after he was forced to retire after throttle problems early in the race. Hamilton\u2019s victory helped his Mercedes team to retain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[41,493,496,664,699,700,709,741,754,921,1031,1115,1180,1208,1227,1263,1283,1287,1298,1424,1498,1613,1642,1707,1731,1732,1770,1791,1808,1843,1857,2025,2105,2149],"class_list":["post-1240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-race-reports","tag-41","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-daniil-kvyat","tag-f1","tag-felipe-massa","tag-felipe-nasr","tag-ferrari","tag-force-india","tag-formula-one","tag-honda","tag-jenson-button","tag-kimi-raikkonen","tag-louts","tag-manor","tag-marcus-ericsson","tag-marussia","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mclaren","tag-mercedes","tag-nico-rosberg","tag-pastor-maldonado","tag-race-reports","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-romain-grosjean","tag-russian-gp","tag-russian-grand-prix","tag-sauber","tag-sebastian-vettel","tag-sergio-perez","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-sochi","tag-toro-rosso","tag-valtteri-bottas","tag-williams"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}