The next round of the calendar brings us to Russia for the second race around the Sochi winter Olympic park - a race which didn't necessarily receive too many plaudits last year. The debut Russian GP was ranked as the most boring race of the 2014 season, so this year's efforts would certainly prefer to show an improvement. The layout was blamed for the most part for the uninspiring events of last season, but the race circumstances didn't help - Rosberg taking himself out of contention on the opening lap... again and thus robbing us of yet another Mercedes battle at the head of the field. So perhaps this season, with a slightly closer battle between the top teams this visit to Russia may be a lot more interesting.
In other news the Red Bull saga continues to rumble on in the background - Ferrari have tentatively offered the engineless teams a deal in which they would be given 2015 specification engines. No real progress has been made because Red Bull were adamant that they would only settle for a full, up-to-date works power unit complete with fuel mixture and operating software... which is not what Ferrari we planning to hand over. Thus we have entered a sort of stalemate situation, which currently leaves both Red Bull and Torro Rosso without an engine supplier for 2016 after the divorce with Renault. If the teams do not secure an engine, or accept a lesser offer - then they will not be on the grid next year. With ongoing issues at Lotus, and Sauber with Force India going to the EU courts complaining about financial distribution within the sport... the grid for 2016 looks rather uncertain. Having escaped the very turbulent relationship Red Bull, Renault have signed a letter of intent to buy the troubled Lotus team - but no real confirmation of how the deal is progressing has been posted.
One team we do know will be on the grid is the new American Haas team making a new foray away from NASCAR into F1. After the Japanese GP Haas made their first driver announcement, which turned into the revealing of what was the worst kept secret in the paddock. Haas unveiled that Romain Grosjean will be jumping ship from Lotus/Renault to the incoming squadron. It seems like a strange move, considering Lotus have a decent car - and with the help of Renault might have a better season next year. While Haas are an unknown quantity who may end up at the back of the grid while they figure things out. There is no news on who might partner Grosjean or who will replace him at Renault/Lotus in 2016 alongside Maldonado. But only time will tell what the future holds for whoever is on the grid next year. If Red Bull do go down, then suddenly they will be four more drivers without a job to take into consideration.
The Venue
People were less than complimentary about Sochi when everyone arrived at the circuit for the first ever race in 2014. Most of the complaints were with the configuration of the track layout rather than the overall concept of the venue - situating a race track in the confines of an Olympic park is a brilliant idea, the Australians have been doing it for a while now in Sydney. The stadiums for the Sochi Winter Games look very nice encircling the circuit and building a dynamic background mural depicting the venue. All of those complaints, well the vast majority of them were aimed specifically at the layout and the areas between the barriers because in a region surrounded by interesting building designs, none of that inspiration soaked through onto the racing surface. The closest comparison would be the former hosts of the European GP - that Valencia street circuit... which deservedly nobody liked either. The problem I have is that even the often villified Spanish port track had a nicely constructed final sector which was a decent redeming feature. Sochi doesn't have that - on paper the wide sweeping arc of turn three was supposed to be this big challenging focal point... turned out to be just a really long corner...
As for the rest of the lap, it starts off with a flat out right handed kink shortly after the start line - leading onto the long DRS straight. A straight where DRS might not have been needed has been given it to make overtaking into turn two even easier than it needs to be. Turn two itself would have been an interesting challenge given the long straight before hand, but this is where the biggest gripe with the circuit design first rears its head. I'm surprised Russia has any tarmac left after the construction of this track, or maybe grass doesn't exist in the vicinity of Sochi - because turn two is simply painted onto the floor on a vast ocean of tarmac. As a result drivers would exploit the track limits to a hideous degree - the opening lap of the GP2 support race was a complete farce with half the field just running off the track because there was no deterrent to not doing so. Apparently tougher measures have been added this time - but in the stewards room, not the track itself. How hard is it to place a simple grass verge to make it less tempting to go off the track. Sochi is by far and away the biggest offender for track limits issues - even Abu Dhabi has grass in places...
Anyway turn two - in whichever format the drivers can be bothered to drive it in - feeds into the very long circle turn. The huge radius of the corner means it is virtually flatout all the way round, but does set up some interesting moves into turn four. Because depending on which line your car can complete the circle turn on determines how well you'll negotiate the following corner. The middle sector of the lap was clearly created through several copy and paste operations in some design software package. I realise that the track had to meander round the Olympic park and show off as many of the stadiums as possible - but this has to be the least interesting set of corners to use. Again with a huge tarmac run-off area problem - you'd have to keep your passport on you and board a flight just to get to the barrier in some corners. Some circuits like Singapore and Abu-Dhabi have too many corners - where as Sochi in this phase has too few. It is just sequence of straights leading into short 90 degree bends - no complex sequences no varied radius corners. With the amount of money that was spent on the Sochi games, surely there must have been some forethought into making the track a little less lazy.
At the end of a series of uneventful corners we come to the back straight - which is virtually a carbon copy of one of the Valencian 'straights' - a couple of gradual curves are added to make things a little interesting. But just like the big circle turn, the interest only really materialises at the end of the sequence because the curve in the track has an influence on selecting braking points for turn 11. The end of the 'straight' edges the cars over to the right hand side of the track, but turn 11 is best approached from the left. Turn 11 itself is the start of a strange and clumsy double chicane - which exists for a purpose I can't quite figure out at this stage. But it does offer overtaking opportunities in a rough sort of way. Suddenly lots of corners are crammed in together. Once the double chicane is over a pair of simple 90 degree corners - (someone had better email Baku, because between Singapore and Russia the world's supply of 90 degree corners has pretty much been depleted) - bring the cars back to the start/finish straight.
The Form Guide
This post was going to be published yesterday, but some folks at EA released a beta version of Star Wars Battlefront... so instead my time involved dying repeatedly, failing to shoot and anything and impersonating Maldonado driving a snowspeeder as I rammed a Tie Fighter... Therefore practice has happened and the data on who is outperforming who it is in... if FP1 is to go by Hulkenberg will be on pole. A diesel spillage curtailed FP1 and rain washed out FP2, so no-one really did too much running and thus we are still in the dark about who will qualify where.
It would be a safe bet to suggest that Mercedes would be out front, but not by as much as we saw in Japan - last season Bottas almost made it onto pole position and Williams in general were very close. This year Ferrari have joined that fight, so Mercedes might not be 100% guaranteed to take the front row this time - another Singapore might be on the cards, as the track is close to a diluted version of the Asian street track. Even though practice has been minimal to none existent again this race like it was in Japan - Force India do look quite competitive and may be looking at a double points finish on Sunday.
Everyone else makes up the mid-field. This will probably not be such a good track for Red Bull and Toro Rosso as it is quite a power circuit with very few long corners - in fact there really is only one long continuous radius high speed cornering event on the entire lap in turn three. Everything else is short sharp corners linked by short straights. This is also bad news for McLaren who also have power issues - Alonso also has yet another grid penalty for a complete power unit change... earning him a 25 place grid deduction, perhaps his engine gave up after he spent the Japanese GP insulting it. Potentially this might open the door for Sauber and Lotus to score some points instead. Alas Manor will have to wait for 2016 and that promise of a new Mercedes engine before they can dream of points...
The last Russian GP wasn't great, it was given a poor rating and wasn't hugely inspiring. But we said that time and time again about Valencia and that unfavoured 'street' track - and in 2012 it delivered a brilliant race. So there is hope that Sochi can shake off the image it created last season and put on a show this time round.... please....
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