• The Inside Line

The birth of a new race

In the run-up to the maiden Russian Grand Prix at Sochi, race promoter Sergey Vorobyev spoke to ESPN in an exclusive interview on the challenges and satisfactions to be found in putting on a brand new race

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While Formula One is new to Russia - despite possible races having been discussed and shelved since the early 1980s - the country does have a strong motorsport tradition. In 1898, the Kubok Obschestva Velosipednoy Ezdy, a grand prix motor race, was held on snowy October roads along a 41-kilometre course.

Russian Grands Prix were held in St Petersburg in 1913 and 1914, and attracted both local and foreign racers, although the outbreak of the First World War brought the event to a halt. The 1960s saw the Soviet Union develop its own touring car series, which started out as A-1600 before being relaunched as Tourism-1600 (or Supertourism) in 1995. The late 1990s saw the introduction of the Russian Formula Three Championship and the Russian Formula 1600 Championship, while the short-lived Formula RUS was expressly designed to help young Russian racers make the move from karts to single-seaters.

Like the event he represents, Sergey Vorobyev has a background in motorsport, having been involved in Russian automotive competition at every level.

Before the Sochi project came along, Vorobyev explains, "I was involved with putting together the first modern national race track in Russia. My first project was the modern National Raceway in my home town. Then it was the Moscow Raceway race track. Also, I helped with the race track in Vladivostok, working to develop the project, and after Vladivostok - in the summer of 2012 - I started to work with the F1 promotional company.

"I started with the Russian Grand Prix in the summer of 2012. There was a special effort in light of the project. The office was located in Krasnodar Krai, in Sochi, and it was one of the early years of the F1 project. From the beginning, FOM gave us their support, and finally we are now basically one week from the first race, which is good."

During the Winter Olympics at Sochi Vorobyev was working as the Deputy head of the promoter organization, but in the months since he has become the promoter of the Formula One Russian Grand Prix. And while a new event always throws up its own unique challenges, lessons learned on the regional and national motorsports stages proved to be beneficial when applied to the grand prix. But the biggest challenge in putting on a race at Sochi? According to Vorobyev, the biggest hurdles were all in the early development phase.

"All the complicated things that there were in the very beginning of the project," he said. "Designing the circuit around the Olympic Park was a challenge. Whether the planning was obstructed, the rate of the Olympic development, all the work around the planning of the Olympic Park... These were all very real challenges, which were overcome. There have been many problems which have needed to be solved, but in general, the Russian Grand Prix is operational and problems have been solved."

As for lessons learned from the Formula One project, there is little Vorobyev would do differently having now gained the experience of putting on a grand prix. "We wouldn't do anything differently in terms of the preparations," he said. "The workings have been okay - there are some things which we would do [differently], but they are on the practical and technical side of things. The biggest lesson from the management point of view is the fact that the management decisions, they have to be made very quickly, very fast.

"There is still a lot to do in the coming week, and next year all that we will do up until the 2015 race will depend on the successes of this coming week. So, we are now working on that. And after the race? We'll think over what we can improve."

With the race still to come, the moment of greatest satisfaction - seeing the lights go up along the start/finish straight to mark the beginning of the first Russian Grand Prix at Sochi - is still a pleasure to be anticipated. But in the meantime, Vorobyev's highlight has been watching the race move from concept to reality.

"This is the moment, the one which basically shows that we're smart enough to do real things. We have been long in the planning and preparation stage, and during recent months there have been a lot of positive things that start to begin at that stage. The FIA inspection, which was passed successfully. The test event at the Autodrom, the RCRS [Russian Touring Cars], which pulled all our team together, and showed that actually we can make it work, we can achieve our aims, and that our original models work. We have several milestones to come next week, and we'll meet them: the first spectators, the first free practice, the first grand prix...

"I'm looking forward to seeing the first Formula 1 cars test the track. Having spent so much time and energy into the project, hosting a successful Grand Prix will the biggest reward I could ever ask for. I think that this is the case for all of the people in my team. All of us want to make our country proud for having such a great event and organizing on the highest possible level".

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

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