Grosjean: Tyre strategy will be crucial for Russian GP chances

Romain Grosjean believes that tyre strategy and how the teams use up their allocation will be crucial to any success drivers have at the Russian Grand Prix. Grosjean said that as Singapore indicated, tyre choice at the start of the race shaped the entirety of the grand prix from that point on.

Those that started outside of the top ten were afforded the choice of starting on the ultrasoft tyre, a preferable race tyre due to its longevity when compared with the faster but far less durable hypersoft.

"The problem in Singapore was qualifying in the top ten with the hypersoft," Grosjean is quoted by F1i. "It didn’t last very long in the race compared to the ultrasoft and the softs. It made the strategy very complicated.

"In Sochi, we’ll need to see how the hypersoft performs. It’s a really good tyre on one lap, but what’s the tyre life? We’ll need to decide if we want to go through to Q3 in qualifying, or if there’s anything we should do differently.

"You don’t want to be qualifying in the top ten and then not have a chance to score points in the race."

Although Grosjean didn't score points in Singapore, he did highlight the strong performance of the car and that Haas had every reason to feel confident going into the Russian Grand Prix next weekend.

"I think we had good pace, I think the car worked very well, which is very encouraging after a difficult Monaco. Sochi should be a good track for us.

"It’s key to get the tyres to work in Russia, and that’s something we haven’t done very well in the past. I’m sure this year we’re going to be much better. I’m very much looking forward to getting there and enjoying it.

“There’s a very long straight line to start, followed by big braking into a right-hand side corner, taken in third or fourth gear.

“I do quite like the fast turn three. It’s a very high-speed corner, flat out, then just going into turn four, coming out of the corner, then braking straight away for turn four.

"The next few corners are very similar. They flow nicely and you enjoy some good speed in the car. Then you go on the back straight, again with very tricky braking. Then the last section of the track is much slower, in particular the last two corners. The finish line is straight at the last corner, so depending if you’re on a qualifying lap or a racing lap, each one is different."