Sochi, Russia — The idea behind building a Formula One track that runs through the former Winter Olympics park in Sochi was to make sure that the multibillion-dollar sporting village had some kind of life after the Games.
But the architects of that plan may not have anticipated that the track would end up hosting the kind of gladiatorial competition that emerged on Sunday during the second annual Russian Grand Prix, full of spectacular and dangerous crashes.
For the second year running, and again with President Vladimir V. Putin watching from the stands, Lewis Hamilton of the Mercedes team won the race, again at the expense of his teammate, Nico Rosberg, who had started on pole position but was out of contention quickly after losing his throttle.