Start, Sochi Autodrom, 2019

Rate the race: 2019 Russian Grand Prix

2019 Russian Grand Prix

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What did you think of today’s race? Share your verdict on the Russian Grand Prix.

RaceFans has held polls on every F1 race since 2008 to find out which fans thought of each round of the season.

Join in the latest poll and give your verdict on the race: 10 being the highest and 1 the lowest. Please vote based on how entertaining and exciting you thought the race was, not on how your preferred driver or team performed.

What were the best and worst moments of the race? What was the main thing you’ll remember about it? Rate the race out of ten and leave a comment below:

Rate the 2019 Russian Grand Prix out of 10

  • 10 (2%)
  • 9 (2%)
  • 8 (8%)
  • 7 (29%)
  • 6 (24%)
  • 5 (16%)
  • 4 (8%)
  • 3 (4%)
  • 2 (2%)
  • 1 (5%)

Total Voters: 226

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1 = ‘Terrible’, 10 = ‘Perfect’

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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41 comments on “Rate the race: 2019 Russian Grand Prix”

  1. 7 for all the drama certainly the best russian gp so far.

  2. An intriguing start to the race, totally ruined by the VSC after Vettel retired. Awful circuit.

  3. 7/10

    Interesting strategy. Got boring after the VSC.

  4. I gave it a 7. Ferrari imploded as they often too which took the fun away from the end of the race but overall, it was an enjoyable couple of hours.

  5. Never thought I would give Russia GP that high score – 7

    Thrilling, tense, with drama!
    Good weekend!

    Roll on Japan!

    1. Incredible race, perfect really, like slipping in your own banana peel. normal service resume I love seeing ferrari being punished for their mistakes, actually I like when actions have consequences. pitting too early, getting race direction to have the courage to actuallly use the vsc in a situation as such, then choose a worse tyre for a worse track position. Another piece of charity for Lewis. 8

  6. Well, somewhere between a 5 and 6 out of 10, I guess.

    There was a seemingly somewhat interesting start, then some more Ferrari team internal drama which ended with a damp squib as Vettel’s engine (?) did and handed the (likely at that point) win to Hamilton, and then some suspense before it was notably becoming less and less likely that it would be anything but a HAM-BOT 1-2 to fizzle out, as a good Sochi race ought to. Only two races until WDC is done officially? Where’s the WCC at?

    1. Also a below pár job from Sky with missing/misinterpretatie what’s happening in the mid field between Albon, Norris, magnussen etc.

  7. 5. This track is awful.

  8. 5: For Russia it was like a 9 (but it truly is a terrible circuit). A bit more overtaking than last week and tyres allowed them to push (a little) more. Think the Ferrari soap opera at the front made it more watchable as a fan. Good racing in the midfield as always.

  9. The racing itself was absolutely awful. Absolutely abysmal.

    If team radio wasn’t broadcasted I’d be rating this a 2. But the team radio was broadcasted and the ‘As The World Turns’ drama pulled it up to a 5. Also, does anyone know if that show still exists?

  10. Well, I didn’t remotely like the race, a true bore-fest which was turned by the ghastly VSC, but I surely did enjoy the karma that Ferrari suffered for trying to grab this race from the deserving winner.

    1. explain. who would have been the deserving winner? ;)

      1. Vettel would be. He was the faster driver today even after Leclerc left his dirty air. Sometimes he was half a second faster.

  11. Also, let’s get #F1SochiSucks trending. Blegh.

  12. 5. If not for the drama within Ferrari I’d have given it a 2.

  13. Absoloute Karma we never need Ferrari going for the title as they will manipulate every race. Hamilton earnt this win if he was so slow like Bottas in the first stint, Leclerc would have still been in the lead and not pitted Hamilton earnt this win. Huge Karma for Ferrari, i prefer Leclerc over Vettel any day but he is becoming unlikeable asking for gifts haha what an apex predator Lewis is the nex king as Hamildon would say

  14. The more “races” I see at this track, the less I like it. It manages to combine all the best features of classics such as Caesars Palace and Yas Marina. Today’s race had cars going round, and VSC turning the race on its head, and not much else.

  15. 5.

    So, who says again Mercedes made the wrong tyre choice?

    The VSC was unnecessary and destroyed it. There was a gate behind VET’s car, they have yellows, double-yellows… why not use them and why took so long to get the car off-track?

    That monster of Ferrari car died way too soon. It was useless on the straights against Mercedes… just as I expected. No monster at all, I guess. Also, that’s why Mercedes still is the better car, ’cause it finishes the races and scores the points.

    1. Strong race by VET. It was not the tow LEC said he gave to VET, it was VET’s very good start who put him 1st. Starting to dislike LEC little by little with every race, asking for gifts every race. Something of this magnitude never happened even in RAI’s tenure, when many people said VET was favoured. I guess Ferrari don’t believe in VET anymore, otherwise they wouldn’t obviously screw VET to please LEC. We have no real proof they gifted VET the win in Singapore, but this time they obviously messed up VET’s race to favour LEC.

  16. Ambice average Sochu race

    1. Annoying auto correct on my new phone,,🙃

  17. 5/10 to me. It started out funny with the Ferrari tactics but nothing really happened. This track seems to bring out the worse in the current cars with massive overheating while following.

    Lewis got a free pit stop under VSC and lucked into the win

  18. 1/10
    What a disgusting farce.
    CLOSE THE PIT EXIT UNTIL THE SAFETY CAR OR AT LEAST ONE CAR HAS COMPLETED A LAP IN THE EVENT OF A FULL OR VIRTUAL SAFETY CAR!!!!

  19. On track action was booring after the start. DRS only passes and no close racing for the podium. Blah.

    Also Lewis won uncontested, so easy -1 to the race rating. We had to many races like this in this year.

    Ferrari team order thingy discussion was appaling. So overall I gave it a generous 5.

    1. “Boring after the start”

      as in….. the ENTIRE race?
      Yeah, I agree.

  20. A 5 from me.

    Was pretty dismal as a racing spectacle. Massive gaps in the first half, very little in the way of real excitement with the main fun thing being the Ferrari radio messages (for the second race in a row).

    VSC and SC made things a little more interesting but at the cost of one of the top four, potentially the quickest one, so the ‘fight’ at the front was diminished. And once Leclerc had tried DRS a few times to pass Bottas it was obvious it wasn’t going to happen.

    On the bright side, nice run from Albon and there was the usual midfield stuff but even that seemed flat and lacking the usual intensity and tightness.

  21. Naff race. The live feed seemed desperate to show cars doing nothing and avoiding any actual on track action, which was frustrating.

    Leclerc’s whinging is getting a little too much and the retirement did feel a little like karma for messing about. Think Vettel deserved the win.

    Was most impressed with Albon.

  22. Total borefest at Sochi. Red Bull’s charge was the only entertainment. Thank god Putin doesn’t show up to present the winners trophy. But still Sochi needs to be out of the calendar just to reduce travel cost between Singapore and Japan and Sepang needs to return.

  23. I’d love to be able to rate the race but I’m in Australia using a wonderful thing called the NBN. My download speed was less than 1Mps until 22:30 local time, so I missed most of the race.
    But on the bright side it has only cost us $55 billion so far :(

  24. Gave it a 4, the same time as we had to wake up on the West Coast.
    Smooth sailing for Lewis, a poorly scripted drama for Ferrari.

    @How about binning radio communication ?

  25. Dutchguy (@justarandomdutchguy)
    29th September 2019, 14:43

    Not bad

    ….
    For Sochi

    There was some drama, little bit of overtaking. This race could have been worse, but it also could’ve been better. For the track however, this is about as good as it gets, so 2019 continues to deliver
    6

  26. An OK race could’ve been worse or better, but overall relatively decent for Sochi Autodrom’s standards although not quite on a level with the 2015 edition.

  27. As has been said, boring race only made interesting by the Ferrari drama.

  28. Not much outright racing going on, but as a overall event, it was another good F1 race. The drama made up for the lack of racing. This is going to reverberate for at least a week. I get up for these things. Nice to have stayed up for the duration for several weeks in a row now. Well worth it.

  29. Lenny (@leonardodicappucino)
    29th September 2019, 22:01

    Good race for Russia. I guess it helped that Ferrari’s plan left me so confused in the first half of the race that I didn’t notice the lack of on-track action.

  30. 7 – I think if I was not watching the highlights then it would have been a 5.

    I thought the camera was very close in a lot of the time missing a lot of the action.
    The rolex bridge blocked the line of sight on some key incidents too.

  31. Gave it 7, maybe should’ve done for 6 in hindsight, there were some midfield battles, some battle ahead but not many, some recovery from albon and verstappen, but ofc a minus point for the vsc, it’s still pretty hard to overtake and let’s say vettel’s problem ruined a potentially more interesting race with leclerc ahead of vettel ahead of hamilton otherwise, while we still hadn’t seen if vettel was faster even in the 2nd stint and if hamilton could’ve come back with fresher tyres especially consiering the later SC would’ve zeroed the gap.

  32. 6/7 for me, gave it 7 for the fun at Ferrari.

    Not a good track for overtaking it seems.

  33. A low 4 for me. Didn’t enjoy this race for almost the whole race.
    Boring snooze fest at the front, besides the stupidity at the Ferrari wall. Vettel deserved to win, but VSC and then bad luck decided different. An the guy who has not only skills but always luck on his side, got the win without any action. Not one on track overtake during the race in the top 5 after the start!

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