Warm embrace: Russian president Vladimir Putin takes British F1 champion Lewis Hamilton in his arms Photo: SKY SPORTS
The boy from Stevenage was simply giddy to be in such company, not to mention be on the cusp of winning a third title, something which will elevate him into a extremely elite group of Formula One drivers.
“I never thought I would be rubbing shoulders with the most powerful people in the world,” he said afterwards. No-one is rubbing shoulders with him on the track at the moment. He is in a league of his own, helped by good fortune along the way.
The permutations are fiendishly complicated – Hamilton leads Sebastian Vettel, who took second here, by 66 points and Rosberg by 73 points – but the long and short of it is that if Hamilton wins the next race in Austin and Vettel does not finish second, then the Englishman is champion again.
Hamilton was at his serene best in Sochi, but this was cruel on Rosberg. He took pole position brilliantly and was convinced he would win, only for his throttle to jam, making the car undriveable. The German retired on lap seven and was crestfallen.
Nico Rosberg watched from the paddock after retiring
“F1 is pretty incredible sometimes how tough it is,” Rosberg said. “It was quite dangerous. Definitely not a nice way to end the day. The championship is more difficult of course but I am never going to win a championship like that when normal things break.” Toto Wolff, Rosberg’s boss, said his driver will now be getting into “2016-mode”.
Hamilton had sympathy for his sparring partner, but when Mercedes’ constructors triumph was confirmed after Kimi Raikkonen’s penalty for taking out Valtteri Bottas on the final lap, the 30-year-old whopped in the motorhome.
Because of the delay, both Wolff and Niki Lauda, the team’s chairman, had left, but they will celebrate back at the factory in Brackley on Monday. Hamilton quickly sent a text to Ross Brawn, the former team principal who is unquestionably the original architect of his current dominance.
The statistics both Hamilton and Mercedes are accumulating this year are staggering. This was Hamilton’s 42nd career victory, taking him to equal third on the all-time list with Vettel, and one beyond his great hero, Ayrton Senna. It was win number nine for the year and 12 out of 15 for Mercedes.
Even though Hamilton was largely untroubled, this was a dizzying race for the spectators. A crash caused by Nico Hulkenberg spinning at the start brought out the safety car, as did a spectacular shunt for Romain Grosjean on lap 12. For two supposedly good friends off the track, Vettel and Raikkonen had a very unfriendly duel at the second restart. Vettel forced his Ferrari team-mate off the track, setting up a controlled second.
Performers limber up ahead of pre-race festivities in Sochi
The only hazardous moment for the German came with a marshal, a month on from narrowly avoiding a maniacal spectator in Singapore. Carlos Sainz, who miraculously started the race after his huge crash on Saturday, had an accident at the same corner in the race, leaving part of his rear wing on the track. The brave – or phenomenally stupid – circuit official just about recovered it moments before Vettel swept past.
Raikkonen had more trouble with other drivers. One lap from the end he and his compatriot Bottas snatched the final podium slot from Sergio Perez, but on the final time round he attempted an optimistic lunge which t-boned the Williams into the barriers and out of the race. Raikkonen received a 30-second penalty for his Finn-on-Finn folly, demoting him to eighth, while an ecstatic Perez took Force India’s first podium of the year.
Vettel’s battle with Raikonnen was a highlight in Sochi
Elsewhere, Jenson Button snuck into the points on an afternoon of retirements aplenty, picking up ninth place. Fernando Alonso, his McLaren team-mate, would have finished 10th but received a penalty for cutting corners.
Button, Alonso and McLaren would need a short-cut, let alone a corner cut, to get anywhere near Hamilton at the moment. This is his era now.