Russian Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton sets the pace in Sochi as he edges towards fifth world title

The Briton recorded the quickest time during Friday's afternoon practice session

Lewis Hamilton has looked unstoppable in recent weeks (Getty)

As Friday’s go, Sochi’s first day of the Russian Grand Prix meeting went well for world championship leader Lewis Hamilton, as he and Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas set the pace.

Having posted the third fastest time in the first session, behind Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari and Max Verstappen’s Red Bullm, Hamilton was fastest in the afternoon. His lap of 1m 33.548s narrowly undercut Bottas’ pacesetter of 1m 33.584s, but where the Finn later failed to improve, Hamilton sliced another couple of tenths off to leave the benchmark at 1m 33.385s.

“Sochi has been one of the weaker circuits for me in the past, particularly last year,” he 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.

“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.

Lewis Hamilton set the benchmark in Friday's afternoon session (Getty Images)

“We've brought more upgrades this weekend; there's so much work going on at home and 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. It's been a good day for us, so let's hope that it continues tomorrow.”

The Silver Arrows have won every race held here since the first in 2014. Hamilton won that one, and the 2015 follow-up, before Nico Rosberg and Valtteri Bottas succeeded him in 2016 and 2017 respectively.

They should thus be the favourites, but Ferrari usually keep some powder dry on Fridays and though Vettel spun in the afternoon session and Kimi Raikkonen had some technical problems, they can be expected to launch a stronger challenge tomorrow.

The man who got closest to the Mercs was Max Verstappen. The Dutchman, who turns 21 on Sunday, lapped in 1m 33.827s and team-mate Daniel Riccardo was fourth on 1m 33.844s as Vettel’s best was 1m 33.928s.

Kimi Raikkonen has his car worked on by mechanics during a pit stop (Getty)

Verstappen already holds the record for the youngest race winner in F1 history (at 18 years and 228 days), but has yet to take the mark for the youngest polesitter. That is currently the preserve of Vettel, who took his first pole and first victory with Toro Rosso at Monza in 2008.

If Verstappen doesn’t break that here, he will have another 56 days in which to do so, up until qualifying in the season finale in Abu Dhabi. But even if he does succeed here it will be academic.

He made a point of complaining long and loud about the performance of his Renault engine on the straights. The relationship between the team and the engine manufacturer, which yielded four championships between 2010 and 2013, soured in the turbo-hybrid era which started in 2014, and they will part company at the end of the year.

It has been compounded this weekend because whatever Red Bull achieves in qualifying will be nullified as both Verstappen and Ricciardo have attracted heavy penalties for changing most of the aspects of their cars’ powertrains - the internal combustion engines, the turbochargers, the MGU-H and MGU-K energy recover systems, and the energy store and control electronics.

Valtteri Bottas in action for Mercedes during the morning session (Getty)

They might as well start the race in Moscow. Ironically, as a result they will occupy the back of the grid with their stablemates Pierre Gasly and Brendon Hartley whose Toro Rossos required fresh versions of the Honda engine that Red Bull will use from 2019. Fernando Alonso is also in the same boat, with his Renault-engined McLaren.

“It was a good Friday for us,” Verstappen said. “It’s better than expected to be third in FP2. Straight away the car was working well, the long runs were good and we seem to be in good shape. Overall, the performance of the car is pleasing, we just need to understand the tyres better and work out the plan for the race. The information we received today was very good and we have the evening ahead to analyse everything. It was good to be in the mix with Ferrari and so far we can’t really complain.

“I don’t know what the strategy for qualifying tomorrow will be, but we probably won’t do the full session. I also expect Ferrari to find something overnight, so it’s going to be close tomorrow. Taking the penalties here is not so bad because it’s not our strongest track, so it’s best to get it out of the way. Starting from the back of the grid should be fun. I mean, moving forward and passing people is never easy, but we’ll see how far we can get.”