Sergio Perez, Force India, Baku City Circuit, 2018

Sochi track should be more like Baku – drivers

2018 Russian Grand Prix

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Formula 1 drivers say Azerbaijan’s Baku City Circuit should be used as an example of how to create more exciting races at tracks like Sochi.

The home of the Russian Grand Prix has a reputation for producing processional races. Asked for his thoughts on how the track could be improved, Sergio Perez told media: “I think all the new circuits should look at Baku.

“Baku is such a good race and it’s just because of the overtaking, and overtaking comes from a very long straight.”

Lewis Hamilton echoed Perez’s view.

“They should probably look at each race and realise that there is a different characteristic in terms of for the race that we get,” he said. “There’s a reason why Baku is super-exciting, there’s a reason why Monaco is boring – yet the spectacle is great – there’s a reason why Austin turns out to be a great race.

“So you’ve got to turn up and pull back on some things or bring different tyres, whatever it is, to these different races to make that happen every single weekend. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t have more awesome weekends like somewhere like Baku.”

Sochi is “unfortunately… not very good for overtaking, considering it has such a long straight,” Hamilton admitted.

“The time delta needed [to overtake] is around 1.5, 1.4 seconds. Every year they’ve brought a tyre that it’s been a one-stop, easy, or a tyre can do the whole race. What that means is there’s no degradation, ever. So then you never can have an offset of 1.4, 1.5 seconds to another car.”

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13 comments on “Sochi track should be more like Baku – drivers”

  1. Perez’s argument isn’t a good one. Yas Marina has very long straights too, and it sucks. Monza has been very processional lately until this year’s race, and it also has a very long straight.

    I don’t know what makes Baku exciting. But I’m sure it isn’t the long straight alone.

    1. I don’t know about that. Baku’s straight is about twice as long as Monza’s main straight, and nearly twice as long as Yas Marina’s longest straightaway. A disparity in length that long clearly makes a difference.

      1. As you say, disparity @markzastrow; I think the argument Perez gives is missing that @fer-no65: it is likely the disparity between the very long straight asking for little drag (or lots of power) and the old Town part that is much more twisty and narrow, demanding good traction and low speed downforce, that means teams have to find a more complex compromise in their car. Monza can sometimes show that same feature ; in my view, this year’s was mainly good because Kimi and Lewis both got it right with a similar pace, I think.

  2. Yeah, that’s what we need. More highway overtakes.

  3. Whilst this years Baku race wasn’t the worst race, it wasn’t massively great either. The first race was far from interesting and last years wasn’t much better. This year there was a little more balance in the field, but, again wasn’t really an exciting race.

  4. As far as I’m concerned, Baku has only ever been a good race because of Safety Cars (and late ones at that). The first year there when the F1 race was uneventful was perhaps one of the most boring races of the year. I wouldn’t use it as a benchmark.

    COTA remains the best new track on the calendar in my opinion. There’s great variation in the sectors requiring a strong all-round car and generally the races have been exciting there.

  5. Not necessarily.

  6. COTA – a track that looked at all the best parts of tracks from around the world and brought them, with their own twist, to 1 track. Of course it’s nearly always going to provide a fantastic race. Sochi has too many close together 90 degree corners to make it an exciting race, no space to gather momentum for an overtake.

    1. COTA is as boring as any other Tilkedrom, just like Sochi.

      What they should do is to reduce track width from 14 to 11 meters and place grass outside 90-deg corners. So those 90-deg corners would be slower and narrower. Especially on section 2 and 3.

  7. Baku is good because it has walls and that means safety cars. If it was a car park track, it would be horrible.

    1. Hans (@hanswesterbeek)
      28th September 2018, 12:57

      I thought Sochi has walls too though.

  8. José Lopes da Silva
    28th September 2018, 15:27

    We should go back to Jarama and Okayama, those were great..

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