Craft-Bamboo Lukoil 1-2 in Sochi test session

Pepe Oriola was fastest in today’s test session at Sochi, Russia. The Spaniard came home ahead of Craft-Bamboo Lukoil team-mate Jordi Gené, with Liqi Moly Team Engstler’s Mikhail Grachev in third.

Two more SEAT drivers and local men Aleksei Dudukalo and Sergey Afanasyev made it five SEAT León Racers in the top five places, with the Russians at the wheel of two Lukoil SEATs, although Dudukalo’s is not managed by the Craft-Bamboo outfit.

Dudukalo had looked strong in the opening stages of the session, taking the lead twice from team-mate Oriola, but in the second part of the session Gené and Grachev improved on their lap times and passed the Russian.

With just a few seconds to go Oriola jumped to the top, whereas championship leader Gianni Morbidelli went no further than seventh, as the track does not seem to suit the Italian at the moment.

Pepe Oriola, the fastest man on track, said: “It was a good testing session, with already a good initial set-up in my SEAT. The track has not yet much grip, but this will evolve. I find the track quite interesting and exciting, it’s fun to drive, although the marshals will have to be very attentive with the respect of track limits, because you can gain quite a lot playing with those.”

WestCoast Racing’s Gianni Morbidelli has a different idea of the track: “I am a little bit puzzled by the track, I don’t find it very interesting, with all these corners very similar one to the other and all these walls. There is only one real fast corner, but which poses no challenge with our cars. There is still a lot of work to do on the handling, so we will focus on that.”

Local man Mikhail Grachev added: “Knowing well the circuit, I could focus on working on the car. We have a good set-up to start from, but there is quite some room from improvement.”

Action will resume tomorrow at 10.00 local time for the first Free Practice session.