Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has said that he doesn’t see his team as favourites to win this weekend.
That’s despite Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas topping the practice timesheets on Friday. And the fact that the team has won every Russian Grand Prix in the modern era since its inception in 2014.
“No, I never see ourselves as favourites,” said Wolff. “How the season has been going this year, first of all, there’s no patterns any more. So I don’t want to put us in a favourite position.”
Hamilton heads into the weekend hoping to extend his points lead in the championship over Sebastian Vettel. He has 40 points in hand with six races remaining.
- FP2: Mercedes takes charge in Sochi for second practice
However despite winning back-to-back races in 2014 and 2015, he’s been less successful in recent visits to Sochi and was only fourth last year – so perhaps Wolff’s caution is entirely appropriate.
“Sochi has been one of the weaker circuits for me in the past, particularly last year,” Hamilton admitted. “So I’ve done a lot of work to understand the balance and see where I can improve to try and rectify this.
“Today has been good in that sense,” he continued. “Let’s hope that it continues tomorrow.”
One of the ways Mercedes traditionally overcomes threats from its rivals is to continue developing the car right until the moment the title is won. It’s no different this season.
“We’ve brought more upgrades this weekend,” Hamilton confirmed. “There’s so much work going on at home.
“It’s just really encouraging when you come to a race and you get an upgrade, knowing that this late in the season we’re also already working on next year’s car.
“It motivates me to get the best out of everything,” he added. “From every race we’re learning more and more and particularly the last few races have helped us to really gauge which foot we need to start on for the weekend.”
Valtteri Bottas is also hoping that he could emerge from this weekend with his first victory of the season, even though he’ll most likely be called upon to play a supporting role to his team mate’s title bid.
“On paper it looks like we should be competitive,” said the 2017 race winner of his Friday progress. “The initial feeling of the car was good.
“We brought some aerodynamic updates to the car that worked well and added more grip. We’ll see if that’s going to be enough for the weekend.
“But it’s only Friday,” he cautioned. “It seemed like Ferrari weren’t really showing everything they have. They will probably be stronger tomorrow. I think it’s going to be very close, so we’ll have to keep pushing.”
As for whether Bottas will be formally instructed to help out Hamilton – even at the cost of his taking pole or winning the race – Wolff said that team orders remained open for discussion.
“We take it step by step, see what happens tomorrow in qualifying,” he commented. “A driver will always want to be on pole and win the race.
“Closing that perspective down, at the beginning of a race weekend, is certainly not something that I’m going to do.
“Hopefully he [Bottas] is going to be very strong and put it on pole and then have a strong race and then we decide what the race situation is and the points situation.”
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