Pre-event Marussia entry Marussia driver
Jules Bianchi suffered
serious head injuries at the
Japanese Grand Prix when he crashed into a tractor trying to recover
Adrian Sutil's
Sauber under yellow-flag conditions, ruling him out of the Russian Grand Prix. Per FIA regulations, the team entered two cars, with
Alexander Rossi, their testing and reserve driver, being named as Bianchi's replacement for the event. However, before Friday's practice sessions and with FIA approval, the team opted not to run the second
Marussia MR03 car and
Max Chilton was their sole representative, leaving the grid with twenty-one cars. As a sign of respect to Bianchi and his family, the team built up and placed his car in his side of the garage and had his livery placed on the walls for the duration of the weekend.
Tributes to Jules Bianchi There were several tributes at this Grand Prix to show support for Bianchi: • Marussia adopted a "#JB17" livery on the cockpit sides of its sole participating car; • Drivers wore a sticker on their helmets saying "
#17", and held a one-minute silence just before the race.
Penalties Pastor Maldonado incurred a ten-place penalty at the
Japanese Grand Prix for exceeding his quota of five engine components for the season. However, as he qualified seventeenth, he was unable to take the full penalty as doing so would move him past twenty-second and last place on the grid. Under new rules introduced for the
2014 season, the remainder of the penalty was carried over to the Russian Grand Prix, automatically giving him a five-place penalty.
Tyres Tyre supplier
Pirelli announced that they would be providing teams with their medium-compound tyre as a "prime" tyre and the soft-compound as the "option" tyre for the Grand Prix to cope with the brand-new surface and to tolerate the high lateral loads placed on the tyre, particularly through turn 4, an elongated constant-radius corner with estimated speeds of that stands out as the longest corner on the 2014 Formula One calendar.
Free practice In accordance with the regulations, three free practice sessions were held. Two one and a half-hour sessions on Friday and another one-hour session on Saturday morning. Per the regulations the teams were allowed to replace one of their regular drivers with a test and reserve driver during the first two sessions.
Mercedes's
Nico Rosberg set the fastest time in the first free practice session, seven hundredths of a second ahead of teammate
Lewis Hamilton, and two tenths of a second faster than
McLaren's
Jenson Button. Elsewhere,
Williams's
Valtteri Bottas carried out limited running after the tyre blankets designed to keep his tyres at the optimal operating temperature were found to have failed, damaging his tyres. Russian driver
Sergey Sirotkin made his Formula One début, driving for
Sauber in the place of
Esteban Gutiérrez. He finished the session seventeenth overall, two and a half seconds slower than Rosberg and four tenths of a second behind Sauber teammate
Adrian Sutil.
Roberto Merhi also took part, driving in the place of
Caterham's
Kamui Kobayashi in his third appearance of the season for the team. Hamilton led the way in the second free practice session, finishing eight tenths of a second ahead of
Kevin Magnussen and
Ferrari's
Fernando Alonso. Rosberg finished fourth, though he made a mistake on his final flying lap. Hamilton was again fastest in the third practice session, three tenths of a second quicker than Rosberg, with Bottas in third. Several drivers encountered trouble whilst simulating a qualifying lap, most notably Magnussen, who damaged his suspension after running wide over a kerb; and Hamilton, who spun at the penultimate corner, narrowly avoiding the wall.
Pastor Maldonado was unable to set a lap time after his
energy recovery system failed. Aided by practice and qualifying sessions from the
GP2 and
GP3 Series support categories, the track evolved to the point where drivers were setting lap times three and a half seconds quicker ahead of qualifying than they had been at the start of the weekend. The pit lane speed was also revised from to to address concerns over the narrow pit entry and its tight corners. Hamilton, Rosberg and Bottas once again led the way in Q2, which saw several drivers in a close fight to avoid elimination. Having struggled with a lack of pace over the course of the weekend,
Sebastian Vettel missed out on a Q3 berth by a tenth of a second. He was followed by the
Force Indias of
Nico Hülkenberg in twelfth and
Sergio Pérez in thirteenth, while
Esteban Gutiérrez out-qualified
Adrian Sutil to give the
Saubers fourteenth and fifteenth.
Romain Grosjean was the final driver eliminated in Q2 despite having improved upon his Q1 time. Bottas finished in third, his fifth podium of the season, having been overtaken by Rosberg on track. Despite having fresher tyres and setting a series of laps among the fastest in the race—including the fastest lap and the official lap record—he was unable to catch Rosberg in the final laps. The race saw two retirements, with
Kamui Kobayashi forced out on lap twenty-one with what the team described as a brake issue, though Kobayashi later suggested that
Caterham had deliberately retired the car to avoid damaging its power unit ahead of the
next race. He also reported that the team had found damage to a suspension wishbone following free practice 3, and that with no replacement part available, the team had repaired the damage by fusing the wishbone together with carbon, a solution that Kobayashi felt was unsafe.
Marussia's difficult race lasted just nine laps, with
Max Chilton reporting an unusual vibration in his front-left suspension, and the team elected to retire the car rather than risk a suspension failure. By out-scoring title rivals
Red Bull Racing, the result also secured the
World Constructors' Championship for
Mercedes, their first title as a Formula One constructor. Hamilton dedicated the win to Jules Bianchi.
Valtteri Bottas's podium finish elevated him from sixth to fourth in the drivers' standings, overtaking
Sebastian Vettel and
Fernando Alonso. The result also allowed
Williams to consolidate their hold on third place in the constructors' standings, ahead of
Ferrari. Further down the order, fourth and fifth places for
McLaren and minor points placings for
Force India saw the British team overtake their rivals for fifth place in the standings. Although Caterham returned to compete in the
Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the team collapsed shortly thereafter. Marussia faced a similar fate before a last-minute deal with an investor rescued the team, and they returned to the Formula One grid in
2015, albeit registered as a British, rather than Russian competitor.
Accolades In December 2014, the race was awarded with the
Formula One Promotional Trophy.
Dmitry Kozak received the award from
Bernie Ecclestone in a special ceremony at the
circuit. ==Classification==