Oh look, here's a surprise, we've never seen that front row before. *eye roll*  Here's the provisonal grid for the 2018 Grand Prix of Mother Russia:

Pos	Driver	Car	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1:32.964	1:32.744	1:31.387
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:32.410	1:32.595	1:31.532
3	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:33.476	1:33.045	1:31.943
4	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:33.341	1:33.065	1:32.237
5	DP Magnussen	Haas Ferrari	1:34.078	1:33.747	1:33.181
6	False Esteban!	Force India Mercedes	1:34.290	1:33.596	1:33.413
7	Charles AMX-30	Sauber Ferrari	1:33.924	1:33.488	1:33.419
8	Lawsuit Perez	Force India Mercedes	1:34.084	1:33.923	1:33.563
9	Lettuce Grosjean	Haas Ferrari	1:34.022	1:33.517	1:33.704
10	Sony Ericsson	Sauber Ferrari	1:34.170	1:33.995	1:35.196
11	DH Verstappen	Red Bull Racing	1:33.048	No Time
12	Smiley Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing	1:33.247	No Time
13	Pierre Ghastly	Toro Rosso	1:34.383	No Time
14	Carlos Sainz	Renault	1:34.626	No Time
15	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	1:34.655	No Time
16	Brendon Hartley	Toro Rosso	1:35.037
17	DTM Alonso	McLaren Renault	1:35.504
18	Homeboy Sirotkin	Williams Mercedes	1:35.612
19	Stoffelwaffle	McLaren Renault	1:35.977
20	Veruca Stroll	Williams Mercedes	1:36.437

Yeah, welcome back to Mercedes being unstoppable in Quals again.  Yes, you might be saying that the track here in Sochi is particularly well-suited to the Mercedes, and you'd be right.  I suspect, however, that's its more than that... that Mercedes has caught up to a Ferrari chassis that, to be honest, was the best in the first half of the year.  Certainly they managed to make their car and tires work today.  The Ferraris looked... clumsy... around the turns today, like more "point and squirt" than "smooth arc".  That can work at some circuits.  Not, apparently, here.

The only saving grace of Quals was that Bottas beat his teammate to pole.  The Finn apparently just loves this track, always doing well... heck, he won last year.  He's also never been outqualified by his teammate here ever.  Some drivers have tracks they love... Valterri Bottas loves Russia.

You may note a LOT of "No Time" listings there in Q2.  Renault, looking like dogmeat around here for whatever reason, decided to not waste rubber in a futile attempt to do... something.  As a bonus, they get to choose what tire they'll start with, so they've got that going for them.  Which is nice.  Both Red Bulls and Ghastly's Toro Rosso have taken new engines/power units/whatever, as since they've all gone over their season limit of three engines/power units/whatever, they all get dropped to the back of the grid.  Again, what you're seeing above is the provisional grid, the real lineup for the last 10 places will be different.

Race in the morning, F1U! sometime thereafter.  Pray for a good race.

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