Now in its fourth year, the drivers will head back to the Sochi Autodrom in Russia this weekend with an even greater understanding of the circuit. The track surface is very smooth, more than likely the smoothest the teams will see all season, which presents some unique challenges.
Firstly, it can be difficult to warm up the tyres during qualifying and degradation is extremely low, as we saw when the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg pitted on lap one in 2014 and managed the entire remainder of the race on that set of tyres.
It is a circuit that requires good all round performance as it has a wide range of different speed corners and a long straight, requiring power and efficiency.
The long straight also provides one of the longest drags from the race start to the first turn, which gives some interesting opportunities for slipstreaming after the start.
The WilliamsF1 team are reasonably encouraged by the performance of their car in Bahrain, so they are optimistic for a strong race this coming weekend. However, as it is another new circuit for Lance Stroll, Friday will be a day to learn the tracks idiosyncrasies so that he can put in a strong performance in qualifying on Saturday.
“This is certainly one of the most difficult tracks for me to talk about as I have never been there or done it on the sim yet. I did watch last year's race but still have to really see how the track is. However, I do enjoy going to new tracks. They all have their own particular characteristics and it is fun to find these out,” the rookie racer explained. “Obviously the first experience I will have is the Thursday track walk, which I do with my engineers.”
“It is surprising how much you can learn about a track by walking it that is still relevant when you are going round at speed in an F1 car. You get to know the bumps and have a feel for how the car will react. When learning a new one there is no set number of laps it takes, as sometimes you get into it very quickly and others it takes a bit more time. It just depends on the track and your feeling and how long it takes to get into a rhythm.”
