Nico Rosberg takes second consecutive pole position as Lewis Hamilton struggles

Nico Rosberg beat Lewis Hamilton to pole position for the Russian Grand Prix, as Mercedes locked out the front row of the grid for the eleventh tim...

Nico Rosberg beat Lewis Hamilton to pole position for the Russian Grand Prix, as Mercedes locked out the front row of the grid for the eleventh time in the 2015 Formula 1 season.

They are all set up to clinch the World Constructors' Championship for the second consecutive year, if they score three points more than Ferrari in tomorrow's race.

Rosberg, who also topped Q1 and Q2, was over 0.3s quicker than Hamilton after the first run in the final segment of qualifying with a time of 1m37.113s.

The German driver did not improve on his second flying lap in Q3, but Hamilton then abandoned his own final effort after suffering a big moment of oversteer and ran wide at Turn 13, which confirmed Rosberg’s second consecutive pole position.

Speaking after he claimed the 18th pole of his career, Rosberg said: “I’m very happy. It’s been a difficult weekend, actually, because of the little running that we got and we didn’t get much practice. But qualifying worked out really well and I found a good balance on the car.

“We had to guess a little bit where it would be, but it felt comfortable and we got some really good laps in. I’m very happy with that.”

Hamilton said: “I did go for my second lap, I just didn’t finish it. I made a mistake at Turn 13. A difficult weekend for everyone and Nico did a great job with his lap.

“I wasn’t quite perfectly happy with the balance that I had, but overall I’m happy as it’s great for the team. As we saw last year, this is not such a bad race for P2.”

Valtteri Bottas beat Sebastian Vettel to third place in the lead Williams, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen and Nico Hulkenberg.

Sergio Perez will start seventh in the second Force India, just in front of Romain Grosjean and Max Verstappen. Daniel Ricciardo rounded out the top ten in his Red Bull.

Daniil Kvyat could not repeat his qualifying heroics of 2014 at his home race, when he qualified fifth, and will start in P11, ahead of Felipe Nasr and Jenson Button.

Pastor Maldonado, who spun at Turn 10 in Q1, will start in twelfth place, with Felipe Massa down in 15th place in the second Williams.

Fernando Alonso was knocked out in Q1 and could only qualify in 16th place for McLaren, but the Spaniard will start last has he has a 35 place grid penalty for introducing more new elements to his power unit.

Marcus Ericsson ended up in 17th place, ahead of the two Manor drivers, Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi.

Carlos Sainz did not take part in qualifying after he was taken to hospital following a big crash in FP3. It is not yet clear if he will be able to take part in the race tomorrow after it was confirmed he had not suffered any injuries in the accident.

A statement from Toro Rosso said, "After arriving at the Sochi Hospital 4, Carlos Sainz, who never lost consciousness, underwent a medical examination, including a full body scan. The scan showed that the driver has no injuries.

However, he will be staying in the hospital overnight as a precautionary measure, which is the normal procedure in these circumstances."

The mechanics are building up a car for him and he is very keen to race, so we will see what the FIA doctors decide in the morning.

There are many question marks going into Sunday’s Russian Grand Prix about race strategy for the 53 lap race.

With so little practice running due to Sainz' accident and Friday rain delays, no-one is certain whether the soft and supersoft tyres will require a one or two stop race tomorrow.

This is one of the toughest tracks on the calendar for fuel consumption and drivers will have to lift off-throttle for up to five seconds per lap to be sure of making it to the finish on the 100kg fuel limit, which could push it towards a one stop race.

Qualifying results:

Pos

1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m37.113s

2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +0.320s

3 Valtteri Bottas Williams +0.799s

4 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari +0.852s

5 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari +1.235s

6 Nico Hulkenberg Force India +1.546s

7 Sergio Perez Force India +1.578s

8 Romain Grosjean Lotus +1.674s

9 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso +1.811s

10 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull +2.615s