Valtteri Bottas looked like he was on to spoil the fun of Mercedes in Sochi, squeezing two fastest sectors on his final lap. However, it all went wrong in the final stretch of track and he had to settle for third place - still a great result for the Williams team, particularly compared with Felipe Massa's P18, after a power unit problem on the Brazilian's car.

Further back, Sebastian Vettel dropped out in Q2 as the Red Bulls continued to lack pace. Marcus Ericsson just missed out on getting into the second session, whilst Pastor Maldonado had reliability issues that dropped him out in the first.