Gasly seeking Sochi boost before Honda's home race

40

Pierre Gasly is hoping that this weekend's Russian Grand Prix will give Toro Rosso the boost it needs to get back on course.

The French driver admitted that things hadn't been going as well as the team had been hoping for in recent races. While he will move to Red Bull in 2019, the 22-year-old still wants to find more success with his current team before moving on at the end of the season.

And with Honda's home race at Suzuka coming up just a week after Sochi, everyone is hoping that the team will be able to find some improved performance and consistency to build on this weekend.

"Will the Sochi circuit suit us? That's hard to tell as recent races have not always gone as we expected," admitted Gasly.

"Many of the corners are quite similar in nature," he explained. "But the final part of the lap especially is pretty technical.

"It would be satisfying to get a good result here," he admitted. "Not just in itself, but to give us a boost before going to Suzuka the following week for Honda's home race."

Last year, the Russian Grand Prix was held in April. Gasly made his Formula 1 début six months later in Malaysia, meaning this will be his first outing at Sochi Autodrom in an F1 car.

Gasly heading to Red Bull to be the best, not to 'destroy' Max

"I raced in Sochi in GP2 twice, coming second in the feature race in 2015," Gasly pointed out. "I also raced at the Moscow Raceway circuit in Renault 2 litre and 3.5.

"But it was a while ago, so it's three years since I last drove there," he admitted.

"[It] gave me the chance to be a bit of a tourist, visiting Red Square and some of the other sites and it's pretty impressive.

"That's one of the nice side effects of doing this job, that you get to see parts of the world you might not otherwise.

"Sochi is a relatively new venue and an unusual place, as it was home to the winter Olympics. The atmosphere around the outside of the circuit is strange, as there's nothing much around it except the former Olympic village."

His team mate Brendon Hartley has even less experience of driving in Russia.

"I've only ever been to Russia for a marketing event and that involved being there for less than 24 hours!" Hartley said.

"The weekend will be an interesting experience for me," he acknowledged. "This will be another new track for me and last week I drove it in the simulator."

Like Gasly, Hartley conceded that things hadn't been going according to plan for Toro Rosso in recent outings.

"It's fair to say, our Singapore performance was not what we wanted," sighed the Kiwi. "So we will be working hard back in the factory to try and find ways of moving forward.

"It's a case of hitting the re-set button, while building on the positive aspects with the aim of looking for points in Sochi."

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.