Rosberg takes pole as ERS issue hits Hamilton

Nico Rosberg took pole position for the Russian Grand Prix as Lewis Hamilton again hit reliability problems.

Hamilton suffered a recurrence of the ERS problem in China at the end of Q2 and was unable to take part in the final part of qualifying. With Mercedes enjoying a big advantage, Rosberg was left with a clear run to pole position and even aborted his final run to be out of the car early having secured pole.

Sebastian Vettel was second fastest in Hamilton's absence - 0.7s slower than Rosberg - but will take a five-place grid penalty as a result of a gearbox change and will start from seventh. As a result, Valtteri Bottas will start from the front row having been third fastest.

Bottas impressed to beat Kimi Raikkonen by 0.1s, with Raikkonen set to start third ahead of Felipe Massa, Daniel Ricciardo and Sergio Perez. Daniil Kvyat will start from eighth and Max Verstappen ninth, with Hamilton provisionally tenth unless he changes components which could result in a grid penalty.

Hamilton was under investigation after not following race director Charlie Whiting's instructions when rejoining the track at Turn 2 earlier in the session, but escaped with a reprimand.

Kvyat needed a final flying lap to make it in to Q3, sneaking in by less than 0.05s to knocked Carlos Sainz out in 11th place. Jenson Button came very close to taking McLaren in to the final part of qualifying for the first time this season but ended up just under 0.1s shy in 12th, with Nico Hulkenberg getting between the two McLarens.

Both Haas cars did well to make the second part of qualifying but Romain Grosjean was still unhappy with the handling, voicing his frustration over team radio. The Frenchman still pipped team-mate Esteban Gutierrez by 0.06s but the pair were over half a second off a place in Q3.

Hamilton's error came in Q1 when he ran wide at Turn 2 and avoided the large exit kerb but immediately rejoined the track rather than going round a bollard on the outside of the circuit.

A close session saw Renault, Sauber and Manor close matched, with just 0.6s between all six cars to drop out. Kevin Magnussen and Jolyon Palmer were the fastest of the six - separated by just 0.095s - but dropped out in 17th and 18th respectively.

Felipe Nasr looked happier with his new Sauber chassis to out qualify team-mate Marcus Ericsson by half a second, with the two Manors also beating Ericsson as Pascal Wehrlein edged out Rio Haryanto by just 0.064s.

AS IT HAPPENED: Russian Grand Prix - Qualifying

Exclusive Valtteri Bottas Q&A

Silbermann says ... 'Russia OK' shock

Romain Grosjean column: Haas brought back down to earth

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
01	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:36.119	1:35.337	1:35.417
02	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:36.555	1:36.623	1:36.123
03	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:37.746	1:37.140	1:36.536
04	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:36.976	1:36.741	1:36.663
05	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:37.753	1:37.230	1:37.016
06	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:38.091	1:37.569	1:37.125
07	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:38.006	1:37.282	1:37.212
08	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull	1:38.265	1:37.606	1:37.459
09	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:38.123	1:37.510	1:37.583
10	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:36.006	1:35.820
11	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:37.784	1:37.652
12	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:38.332	1:37.701
13	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:38.562	1:37.771
14	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:37.971	1:37.807
15	Romain Grosjean	Haas	1:38.383	1:38.055
16	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas	1:38.678	1:38.115
17	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:38.914
18	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:39.009
19	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:39.018
20	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor	1:39.399
21	Rio Haryanto	Manor	1:39.463
22	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:39.519

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.