Straight-line speed is a big focus point at Sochi's 5.8 km Olympic Park circuit, so it's vital to maximise top speed, for performance considerations but also to facilitate overtaking.
As is often the case, a Mercedes-powered car led the charge down the straight in qualifying, with Sergio Perez' Force India clocking in at 330.0 km/h through the speed trap.
As inefficient as Williams' FW41 has proven to be this season, there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with its top speed potential as Lance Stroll's performance, which sat at 329.0 km/h, demonstrated.
This could also be the result of Williams running a low-drag set-up at what is normally a medium-downforce venue, to purposefully try and extract more speed from its recalcitrant FW41.
Poleman Valtteri Bottas' performance relative to Lewis Hamilton is underlined here once again as we see that the Finn was actually a few kilometers slower down the straight than his Mercedes team mate.
At the other end of the spectrum, it's the usual suspect - a McLaren - that lingers, some 17 km/h off the pace of the fastest car, although one will note that Fernando Alonso's running in qualifying was geared limited and geared towards helping team mate Stoffel Vandoorne make the Q2 cut. The effort was in vain however.
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