Russian Grand Prix 29th September
The Circuit
The Sochi Autodrom runs through the 2014 Winter Olympics Park and is a combination of a street circuit and a permanent track. The first sector is fast, with a full-throttle straight off the line and a wide, fast curve around the flags of the nations. Most of the overtaking and the heated battles will take place in this sector where the track becomes narrower and more technical as it leads into sectors 2 and 3. The track is new and the tarmac has good grip, but has an uneven surface, where waves in the tarmac are visible to the naked eye. It is important for the car to have straight-line performance, traction and good braking here as it dominates the first and the last sectors.
The Riviera of the Black Sea
Sochi is also called the “Russian Riviera”, with the beautiful backdrop of the Black Sea that stays warm enough to swim in until October. Though it hhosted the winter Olympics in 2014, Sochi is ironically one of the warmest places in Russia during the winter, where tourists can enjoy the best of both worlds with the ski resorts in the Caucasus Mountains as well as the sea.
