Rosberg beats Hamilton to win in Russia

Nico Rosberg won for the seventh time in a row as he beat Lewis Hamilton to the chequered flag in the Russian Grand Prix.

The German was untroubled as he stormed away at the start and maintained a comfortable gap on his way to victory, which extends his championship lead to 43 points.

Hamilton will be happy with second after starting 10th, as he made brave moves on Kimi Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas.

But a water pressure problem denied him a shot at victory as reliability problems struck again.

Raikkonen finished third to claim Ferrari's 700th podium, but his team-mate, Sebastian Vettel, retired on the opening lap after he was hit twice by Daniil Kvyat.

Vettel made a decent start from seventh but was tapped from behind by Kvyat, causing him a puncture, and the Russian smacked into him again shortly after to send him into the tyre barrier.

All the early drama helped Hamilton up from 10th to 5th, and he quickly disposed of Felipe Massa and Raikkonen.

But Bottas was harder to pass and the Englishman had to wait until after the first round of stops to get by, but Rosberg was already clear.

Fernando Alonso claimed a solid sixth for his first points of the season, ahead of Kevin Magnussen and Haas F1's Romain Grosjean.

Sergio Pérez and Jenson Button completed the points.

Russian Grand Prix results.

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