Stoffel Vandoorne may be learning several new tracks this season as he takes part in his first full season in Formula One, but the Sochi Autodrom isn't one of them.
The Belgian drivers knows the Russian track quite well after taking the GP2 crown here two years ago, but racing a GP2 car here and racing one of the new generation F1 contenders will be a totally different challenge, but a challenge the McLaren-Honda driver is more than ready for.
“I've raced in Sochi before and had good results there – it's where I clinched the GP2 championship in 2015 – so that's definitely a plus point for me going into the weekend. We've not been so lucky recently on my side of the garage and I've missed quite a lot of valuable mileage, but I hope we can improve that situation this weekend,” he said.
“After a difficult couple of weeks, the last day of the Bahrain test was very encouraging, both for me and for the whole team. It was a boost we needed and provided us with a lot of useful information about the direction we are taking the whole package in, so we go to Sochi with a better feeling than we had on Sunday night after a disappointing race.”
Stoffel will need to focus on two sections of the track in particular. Firstly, turn three, a horseshoe-shaped left-hander. With the extra downforce produced by the 2017 cars, it should be ‘easy-flat' this year, like going around the outside of rivals and getting the inside line into turn four.
Secondly turns 13, 14, 15 and 16 are the most intense sequence of corners on the lap. Braking for Turn 13 is tricky because it's on a bend and the corner exits are off-camber, making it tricky to get the power down. It's easy to lose a lot of time in this latter section.
