DHL Fastest Pit Stop Award: Red Bull halt Williams' winning run

With Daniel Ricciardo retiring early, Red Bull only had to perform one pit stop in Russia – but they made it count…

Williams saw both of their cars reach the chequered flag for the first time this season in Sunday’s race in Sochi, but they also tasted their first defeat of the season in the DHL Fastest Pit Stop Award stakes, with Red Bull taking the honours.

Williams, last year's pit stop champions, had recorded the best pit stop times in each of the first three races of the season, but in Sochi they could only manage the third and fifth quickest times as Red Bull narrowly saw off Mercedes by 0.03s to claim top honours.

In changing all four tyres on Max Verstappen’s car in 2.33s (as shown in the video above), Red Bull also claimed the fastest pit stop time seen so far in 2017, when the teams have had to get to grips with bigger, heavier tyres.

Despite missing out on another victory, Williams' combined points haul actually enabled them to strengthen their grip at the top of the overall standings, with Red Bull consolidating their grip on second and Mercedes overhauling Force India and Ferrari to move into third.

Toro Rosso meanwhile move up to P5 in the standings thanks to their first double points finish of the season.

One final thought: just 0.617s separated Valtteri Bottas and Sebastian Vettel at the flag. As it turns out, Ferrari surrendered all that margin and more to the Finn in the pit lane - showing just how critical pit work can be in the outcome of a race...