DHL Fastest Lap Award: 2016 FORMULA 1 RUSSIAN GRAND PRIX

Crowd surfing in the pit lane! Nico Rosberg ‘surfs’ on his mechanics’ hands along the pit lane at the Sochi Autodrome to wild cheering from the crowd. Four races, four wins this season and now six on the trot since Brazil, 2015. The Silver Arrows star is the man of the hour and now leads the 2016 DHL Fastest Lap Award thanks to his second fastest lap in Sochi.

The world championship leader started from pole position and did not relinquish the lead once during the entire 53 laps. Despite a technical problem, Rosberg gave it everything to the very end, posting the fastest lap on the penultimate round (Lap 52) with an average speed of 212.452 km/h. 

“I just like to do it for concentration; just keep going, because if I slow down otherwise, you start making some mistakes, and I was enjoying it out there, just flat out until the end,” said Rosberg after the race in which he showed impressive consistency. Taking an average of the ten fastest laps, he was almost six tenths faster than the second-placed driver in this category, Felipe Masa, with a time of 1:39.996 minutes. “This weekend really went really perfectly for me. If you have a car like this, you are really able to push to the limits and that's an awesome feeling.”

With his second fastest lap of the year, Rosberg also takes over the overall lead in the 2016 DHL Fastest Lap Award. Behind come Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hülkenberg, who are on level pegging with one fastest lap each. Drivers will get the next opportunity to improve their status in the standings at the 2016 FORMULA 1 GRAN PREMIO DE ESPAÑA PIRELLI from the 13th-15th May. 

The fifth round of the season at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya also marks the start of the 2016 Formula 1 season in Europe where we will see team motor homes and trucks in the paddock for the first time. This means for the logistics technicians that they again have shorter transport routes to events in the UK, Italy and Switzerland.

Delivery of spare parts at short notice, as was the case for Rosberg's teammate Lewis Hamilton in Sochi, will become easier. A defect in the power unit of the reigning champion’s car was discovered on Saturday. The team flew new parts out overnight and built them into the car in time to allow Hamilton to participate in the race without penalty. The same thing applies throughout Formula 1: Great is in the detail.

Fastest race laps: 2016 FORMULA 1 RUSSIAN GRAND PRIX

01 Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) 1:39.094 - on Lap 52
02 Felipe Massa (Williams)     1:39.743 - on Lap 52
03 Kimi Räikkönen (Ferrari) 1:40.101 - on Lap 47
04 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 1:40.266 - on Lap 36
05 Fernando Alonso (McLaren) 1:40.347 - on Lap 52
06 Valtteri Bottas (Williams) 1:41.159 - on Lap 37
07 Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) 1:41.179 - on Lap 46
08 Jenson Button (McLaren) 1:41.720 - on Lap 50
09 Kevin Magnussen (Renault) 1:41.832 - on Lap 50
10 Sergio Pérez (Force India) 1:41.897 - on Lap 47