What’s the mood headed to Sochi? I have quite a bit of optimism! I think we made good progress to enable us to improve our race pace for Sochi when we were testing in Bahrain and we have some new bits for the car to facilitate this too. Of course, the Sochi Autodrom is a completely different circuit, so we can’t accurately predict our relative performance until we get there, but I’m feeling positive. What do you think of the event? I like travelling to Russia, it’s a cool place and I like the track and infrastructure there. Of course, my main focus is on the track itself and it’s a good one to drive, so I go there with a happy face. I think we’ve made good progress with the car with some positive updates, which should also make me happy. What are your thoughts of the track when you’re behind the wheel? It’s one of the longer laps of the season and this is compounded by there being a lot of corners. This makes it a big challenge for any driver as you need to get every turn in each sector together perfectly, especially in qualifying. It’s a very quick and flowing track, which is why I like it so much. There are a number of tricky bits too, especially braking into the corner at the end of the back straight. The final sector is a bit more technical and slow in its nature, but overall it’s a fun track. What was on your wish list for improvement at the Bahrain test? Of course, I’m a race driver so I want improvement in every area! The car is basically good, it’s just a number details where we need to improve. The positive is we know what these areas are and what we need to do to improve them. We want more downforce and to improve the car aerodynamically and we want to use the tyres better in the race. What’s you track record like in Russia? I haven’t had the greatest amount of luck in Sochi with two retirements and a 12th placed finish, so it would be great to score my first points there in 2017! Three races in, how are you enjoying racing the latest generation F1 car wheel to wheel? It’s fun, but you get used to new things so quickly! We’re on top of the new level of downforce from a driving point of view; it’s quickly the status quo. It’s a different experience racing wheel to wheel, but I want to be doing this more through fighting my way up the order!

What are your thoughts on Sochi? For me the best thing about Russia is that I won the first ever GP2 Series race there and that race won me the championship, so I have very good memories of the Sochi Autodrom! I got a great start so led from the first lap but was under a lot of pressure all the way. It’s great to win any race, but to win a race where you’ve had pressure at every turn, that’s a real achievement. What’s the challenge of Sochi in a Formula 1 car? It’s a smooth and still pretty new track with plenty to think about in its layout. We’ve seen that it can start with pretty low grip levels at the beginning of the weekend, but it will be interesting to see how the extra downforce of 2017 copes with that. Last year we struggled to the car where we wanted in qualifying but we went better in the race. How do you feel progress has been so far this season? There’s definitely been progress, but there’s certainly more to come. Getting into the top ten in qualifying for the first time in Bahrain was particularly satisfying. I’d struggled a lot in the FP3 session, so myself and my engineer, Chris Richards, sat down and we changed the set-up of the car so it worked far better. My race in Bahrain was frustrating as we weren’t able to unlock the pace from the car – which was something Nico suffered from too. The real positive is that the team is taking a step forward at every race so we’re hopeful that Sochi continues in this vein.

What’s the outlook heading to Russia? We head to Sochi with a reasonable degree of optimism. We have shown a good progression so far in 2017, most notably illustrated by qualifying both cars in the top ten for the first time in Bahrain as well as securing our first points finish. There’s no doubt we have work still to do, equally it’s clear we’ve taken a tangible step forward. Where’s the current focus of development? It’s pretty clear and we’re not under any illusion; we are currently qualifying better than we race and that’s a symptom of our current car performance. We have a reasonable understanding of why this is and have a number of developments to address this in the realm of aerodynamics and suspension. We tested new parts – including a new front wing - in Bahrain designed to add more aero-performance to the car and also make it slightly more benign to engender better race pace. It’s a positive of testing somewhere where you’ve just had a Grand Prix that there is a lot of comparable data for evaluation. Why does the car seem to qualify better than it races? The R.S.17 is not as well balanced as we’d like over a full stint. Whilst you can get away with this over the course of a qualifying lap - where fresh tyres can mask the balance issue – the performance is less consistent when you take to the longer runs of race stints. The R.S.17 has a somewhat nervous corner entry, followed by mid-turn understeer, followed by a nervous exit making finding traction a challenge. If we can address these areas, our drivers will have a very effective race car at their disposal. We believe the problems are aero related, so we’re primarily looking for the solution there. Once we have the entry-phase of the corner sorted, the rest should follow more easily. The big positive is that the car has the basic pace to be able to be qualified well. Our current issue is extracting that pace in a race scenario. If you have the pace the key is maintaining it; it’s easier to translate qualifying pace to race pace than to find basic performance. What’s wanted in Russia? Our target for Sochi is another step forward from our performance in Bahrain. We’d be happy with a similar qualifying position allied to improved race pace.