Mercedes have appeared to have the edge over Ferrari so far in Spain, and qualifying went that way too. Lewis Hamilton’s first run in Q3 was good enough for pole position, and no-one, not even himself could better it in the final flying laps. Vettel finished second, after dealing with engine gremlins for most of the weekend so far, whilst Bottas and Räikkönen settled for the second row of the grid.

Teams showed off their updates to the cars in practice for the Spanish Grand Prix today, as well as refreshed paintwork that more visibly displays the drivers names and numbers. Fans were only able to look at Fernando Alonso’s number for three short corners before the McLaren started issuing smoke and Alonso pulled it off track. His afternoon session was marginally better, 21 laps but he was last and complaining the engine was even slower.

Romain Grosjean has joined the group of directors for the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, replacing the outgoing Jenson Button. Grosjean will serve alongside Sebastian Vettel as a fellow director, and chairman Alex Wurz. Grosjean said: “I am proud to have been elected by my peers. We race drivers don’t always hold the same opinion but we are united in wanting the best for our sport.”

Given the current problems that McLaren and Honda have been having for the past season and a half, you’d think there wouldn’t be a large customer base waiting to sign up for Honda power. However, the Sauber F1 team have confirmed they will be joining technological forces with the Japanese manufacturer for 2018 and beyond.

Valtteri Bottas muscled past both the Ferrari drivers off the line in Sochi to take the lead of the race. He survived a safety car period, the tense one-stop strategy, as well as a late charge from Sebastian Vettel, to take his first victory in Formula One, after more than 80 races. A well-earned win, the Finn was joined on the podium by Vettel and Räikkönen, with Lewis Hamilton finishing a distant and disappointed fourth.

The sun was shining and the tension was high as qualifying for the Russian Grand Prix got underway. The first session was as you might expect, although Romain Grosjean dropped out surprisingly early. Jolyon Palmer struggled as well, after missing out on practice and having an engine change in his Renault.

Although the sun was beating down on the Sochi circuit, it was a scrappy day of free practice for many teams and drivers. Sergey Sirotkin was in at Renault, celebrating a Friday appearance in front of his home crowd, but it ended with his engine switching off. Esteban Ocon also suffered in the engine department in a slightly different way, the pink engine cover on his Force India flew off the back of the car as he was braking.

The F1 Strategy Group met with the F1 Commission, the FIA, and FOM boss Chase Carey to agree on changes to the sport for 2018 onwards. The most visible changes will be around the engine covers with the regulations being tweaked so as to limit the shark fins and t-wings that have taken precedence this season.

Sebastian Vettel took race victory ahead of both Mercedes drivers, after a double pit stop delay for Bottas and Hamilton cost both the chance of race victory. Hamilton also picked up a five second penalty for driving unnecessarily slowly in the pit lane ahead of Daniel Ricciardo. This all happened under the safety car, which was out to sort out the mess following a crash between Lance Stroll and Carlos Sainz.

Qualifying got underway with more McLaren woes: Stoffel Vandoorne was knocked out in the first session, and although Fernando Alonso got through to Q2, he was unable to participate due to an engine problem. Other teams had split drivers with Wehrlein up in Q2, but his Sauber teammate not, and a similar story for Toro Rosso and Force India.