F1 2017: Bottas beats Vettel to Russian Grand Prix win after Mercedes-Ferrari slugfest

If the slim margin in qualifying for the Russian Grand Prix at the 5.848km, 19-turn Sochi Autodrom wasn't an indication of how close things are between Mercedes AMG F1 and Ferrari this year - pole-sitter Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas were covered by less than one tenth of a second - the start of the race and the winning margin definitely brought that home.

Mercedes' Bottas became the first Finnish driver to win a Grand Prix since 2013 by beating Ferrari's Vettel by just 0.617 seconds at the end of the 303km race that saw an aborted start after Fernando Alonso's McLaren-Honda broke down during the first formation lap.

HARD FOUGHT WIN
The Finn shot into the lead of the race as the five lights went out and built up a lead as much as five seconds from Vettel who gave chase while the other Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen and Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton slowly started to drop back and out of contention for the race win.

Complaining of overheating - a problem the Mercedes team said afflicted Bottas too, who had the benefit of clean air in front of him - kept cropping up for Hamilton as the former three-time world champion was unable to be a factor for a podium finish.

Instead, Raikkonen ended up having a somewhat lonely run to third as Vettel attempted to stretch his tyres for as long as possible before his only pit-stop, as was the case for most of the field.

With both their stops out of the way, Vettel proceeded to slash into Bottas' 4 second lead, eventually bringing it down to under a second by the penultimate lap of the 52-lap race.

However, having to deal with backmarkers including Felipe Massa's Williams-Mercedes meant that the lead briefly grew to over a second and a half before Vettel pushed for all he was worth again.

MAKING A STATEMENT
Finishing in front of such pressure and also beating former champions Raikkonen and Hamilton - Bottas finished 36 seconds ahead of his teammate, having out-qualified him too - was a big boost to the Finn's reputation after he had been tipped by many to be future world champion material following his performances with Williams in his first two seasons in 2013 and 2014.

After a pole position in the previous round in Bahrain only amounted to a third place due to issues with his tyres and subsequent problems, Bottas had a trouble-free run that allowed him to show what he was capable of.

Red Bull-Tag Heuer's (Renault) Max Verstappen, Force India-Mercedes' Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon, Renault's Nico Hulkenberg, Massa and Toro Rosso-Renault's Carlos Sainz Jr completed the top ten of the race classification.

Bottas' win takes his points tally to 63 points behind Hamilton's 73 and Vettel's 86 and Mercedes now lead the constructors' championship by just one point (136 points to 135).

The next round of the world championship is the Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona on the 12 to 14 May weekend.