And voilà, we’re in Sochi for more FIA F2 action, it’s a city where the nights are dark and the sea is warm, Sochi.

From the circuit, you can spot a dolphin or two, or three, playfully racing each other in the clear waves of the magic Black Sea, sort of reminding us all of the eco-friendly UIM E1 World Electric Powerboat Series.

You might even find yourself chewing on a tasty vegan banana if you’re a spectator in Sochi. Anyway, this is what happened in the FIA presser when Sergio pressed a few buttons.

1. Yuki Tsunoda (Carlin)
2. Jehan Daruvala (Carlin)
3. Mick Schumacher (PREMA Racing)

Sergio: What’s been the most difficult bit of your work today, the lack of grip of the surface the track or it’s rather the wind?

YT: Um, yeah, I think different track conditions. Usually we drove FP after Formula 1 and Formula 3 and the track’s grip is already high but this time it was really dusty. Even when I was driving behind someone, I could feel the dust from the eyes and it was really, really dusty. But also slippery, if you miss the line you just go off track so it was really difficult to drive fast on the line, just one line. Yeah, I think that’s the main thing I felt a bit difficult compared to previous races.

JD: Like they’ve touched on, it’s the first weekend where we went out first on track so that was a bit different. It was harder to find the limit, the car was moving around a lot more. But yeah, for me the most surprising thing, what Mick said, was that I didn’t really feel much more grip on the supersoft tyre, I expected it to be a lot faster because my first lap was only a couple of tenths faster than I went in FP and I was surprised I was actually the fastest when I saw the time on my dash. But yeah, I think just increasing track temperature affected the overall performance and it was just about constantly adapting to the wind and the track.

MS: Um, yes, obviously I guess it was mostly said already, I think adapting to the track conditions that we had from FP that kind of just changed a lot and going open-minded into qualifying. Also, the wind picked up a bit in qualifying which was an added… I would say help in some cases because it was pretty much face wind or head wind going into Turn 1 and also going into Turn 5, if I’m not wrong. So it kind of just improved the braking stability in general there. After it became a bit more tricky in other corners, like Turn 12 which is a fairly difficult corner to get it right, especially when you see a lot of F1 cars locking up and struggling to keep the tyres working so it was fairly difficult, that.

Stay tuned for more exclusive content (on F2 2021) during the next week, folks!

Lap 1 should be pretty exciting.