Jordan's Track Talk

Tag: Russian Grand Prix

  • F1 terminates Russian GP contract

    Following the announcement made by F1 last week that the Russian GP is cancelled, F1 has now confirmed that the contract for the Russian Grand Prix has been terminated.

    This means that F1 will no longer shift from Sochi to St Petersburg as planned in 2023. F1 was due to race at the revamped Igora Drive circuit from next year, with the contract running until 2025.

    This decision, is understood to have been taken last week as part of the talks between F1 officials and team bosses about the race following the invasion of Ukraine.

    Sport around the world has been cutting ties with Russia since the start of the invasion. With the FIA World Motor Sport Council, announced that Russian and Belarussian drivers could still race, but only under a neutral FIA flag.

    However, this has not stopped individual ASNs from taking their own action, including Motorsport UK, which announced Russian and Belarussian drivers are not permitted to race in the UK.

    Nikita Mazepin’s future is still uncertain with Haas, the teams title sponsor Uralkali has its branding removed from the car for the final day of testing, having supported Mazepin throuhgout his career.

    “Formula 1 can confirm it has terminated its contract with the Russian Grand Prix promoter meaning Russia will not have a race in the future,” the statement reads.

  • Vettel will not race in Russian GP

    Sebastian Vettel has said he will not race in the Russian Grand Prix if Formula 1 still visits there later in the year, following the countries invasion of Ukraine.

    F1 said today that it was monitoring the situation after Russia commenced a major military assault on Ukraine on Thursday morning after months of tension building.

    It has been reported that UEFA plans to strip St Petersburg of the Champions League final in June in reaction to the invasion, an has put F1’s plans for the grand prix in Sochi in the limelight.

    The four-time world champion is a GPDA director and has been one of the grids most vocal figures on social matters and human rights in recent years, while Vettel said he could not speak on behalf of the GPDA as the drivers had not discussed the issue yet, he revealed that his own mind was already made up and would not race in Russia.

    “In my personal opinion, obviously I woke up again after this morning’s news, shocked” Vettel said. “I think it’s horrible to see what is happening. Obviously if you look at the calendar, we have a race scheduled in Russia. For myself, my own opinion is I should not go, I will not go. I think it’s wrong to race in that country. I’m sorry for the people, innocent people who are losing their lives, getting killed for stupid reasons under a very strange and mad leadership. I’m sure it’s something we will talk about, but as I said as GPDA, we haven’t come together yet.”

    Max Verstappen also added: “When a country is at war, it is not right to race there.”

    My Opinion-

    First of all round of applause to Seb and Max, I completely agree with what both have said, and I think some other drivers will agree too. It will be interesting to see what the drivers association will say when they come together.

    For F1 to say they are ‘monitoring’ the situation closely I find wrong, its a simple yes or no if they are going to race there or not, they have plenty of time to find a replacement as it set to be in September.

  • Russian Grand Prix to move

    It got announced over the weekend that the Russian Grand Prix will be moving homes.

    The Grand Prix is currently held in Sochi, however from 2023 it will be held just outside St Petersburg. Sochi has hosted every Russian grand prix since it joint the calendar in 2014.

    The new venue- Autodrom Igora Drive was given its Grade 1 status by the FIA at the end of last year, making it the second ever Russian host of a Formula One Grand Prix. It has 10 different track layouts and over approximately 100 hectares.

    It’s only 54km from St Petersburg and only 150km from the border of Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen’s home country of Finland.

    F1 says that more details on the race will be released in the next coming months, this years Russian Grand Prix is set to take place at Sochi on September 26th.

    My Opinion-

    I think this is a good call! It’s always nice to go to new tracks as its exciting and the drivers wouldn’t have driven their before so anything could happen! Obviously unfortunate for Sochi but I don’t think it will be missed, not many people like the circuit!