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In an interview with ESPN F1 today, Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg says the characteristics of the Sochi circuit were “very unique” on Friday, prompting his engineers to try “something completely creative.”
Rosberg finished fourth quickest in Friday’s second practice having set the pace in the day’s earlier session. While his team mate Lewis Hamilton set a blistering 1:39.630, a mistake on his hot lap at Turn 17 meant Rosberg fell short of his team-mate’s mark. He was also edged by Kevin Magnussen and Fernando Alonso, his best lap time put him fourth quickest, 0.912s off the pace.
In an interview with ESPN F1 today, Rosberg has stated that the characteristics of the Sochi track are “unique” and will provide him and his engineers with a challenge this weekend. Rosberg stated the following:-
‘The whole track was very unique today, not just the layout but the way the tyres worked and everything – very unusual. That makes it very interesting from an engineering perspective because it’s unlike any other track we’ve seen this year.’
It would seem that Rosberg believes that the characteristics of the Sochi track are very unusual and believes that it is interesting in terms from an engineering perspective. And you can understand why Rosberg believes this and I think many pundits and fans would not disagree with him on that point either.
Further on in his interview with ESPN F1 today, Rosberg said that he and his engineers tried something different on his car that didn’t work out for him and will improve on his set up overnight. Rosberg added the following:-
‘We even went as far as trying something completely creative on my car, something we’ve not done so far. It didn’t work out so I have to go back on that but still, it’s going to be a challenging weekend.
“We decided as a team that one guy does that, one guy does that. My thing didn’t work out so we need to go back on that tomorrow. Other than it’s OK, it’s a good track, a difficult track to get right. Nobody managed to do it on the first lap, you have to build up on it.’
For Rosberg to go completely creative on his car in order to give himself the best possible start to the weekend would be expected, but it is clear that this approach did not work out for him. But he will use the data gained from today and will work with his engineers to find the best possible set up he can for this weekend. But it would seem from Rosberg that the demands of the Sochi track is testing him and all the drivers so far and will be looking to improve over the course of the weekend as the track rubbers in.
But I would have to agree with Rosberg that this will be a challenging weekend for him, especially as he is looking for a victory in order to regain back the lead of the championship from Hamilton. And with the Sochi circuit challenging every driver on the grid currently, will Rosberg be able to find a set up that fits the demands of the circuit and provide him with a chance of a win this weekend in Russia? We shall have to wait and see what happens throughout the weekend.
