'Russia owes me one' - Sainz

Carlos Sainz claims "Russia owes me one" after the Toro Rosso driver's difficulties at last year's race in Sochi.

Following disjointed running on Friday, FP3 saw Sainz have a huge accident at Turn 13, with his car becoming buried under the Tecpro barrier. Having been released from hospital, Sainz raced on Sunday and was running in the top six after an excellent recovery when his brakes eventually failed, forcing his retirement.

“I think Russia owes me one," Sainz said. "I honestly feel that it owes me one because last year everything that could happen to me did happen, when I think that I deserved a good result on Sunday after the race the break happened in the corner that it shouldn’t have happened so hopefully it will give me back something.”

However, Sainz admits the circuit is not one which should suit Toro Rosso on paper.

“There’s no fifth, sixth gear corners, that is our advantage. There’s a lot of straights, a lot of braking. In those fourth gear corners maybe we are strong but we need to take off the down force to equalise the others so we shouldn’t be quick.

"I don’t know honestly it’s a question mark, maybe after watching some data [after practice] I can explain to you why we might be strong but at the moment nothing says that it should be our best weekend, actually it should be a difficult one. I’m up for a challenge so let’s see if we can make it work.”

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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.