Sochi Autodrom

The Sochi Autodrom (Сочи Автодром), previously known as the Sochi International Street Circuit and the Sochi Olympic Park Circuit, is a 5.853 km Formula One racing street circuit under construction in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi in Krasnodar Krai, Russia. The circuit is similar to Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and the Sydney Olympic Park Circuit in that it will run around a venue used for Olympic competition; in this case, the Sochi Olympic Park site, scene of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. The inaugural race is due to take place in 2014, the first year of a seven-year contract. The International Olympic Committee was given the power to delay the race until 2015 if preparations for the race interfered with the Winter Olympics, but the Games started without interruption. In October 2011, the Russian government set aside US$195.4 million for the construction of the circuit.

The construction of the Sochi Olympic Park Circuit marks the end of a thirty-year campaign for a Russian Grand Prix, with plans for a "Grand Prix of the Soviet Union" originating as early as 1983 before being abandoned for "bureaucratic reasons" and several failed attempts in the intervening years.

The circuit
The 5.853 km circuit will be the third-longest circuit on the Formula One calendar, behind Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium and Silverstone in Great Britain. The circuit will be built around the Sochi Olympic Park "coastal cluster", a collection of venues for the 2014 Winter Olympics that have hosted ice hockey, speed skating and the stadium for the opening and closing ceremonies. The surface was not laid until after the Closing Ceremony of the Olympics.

The circuit will start on the northern edge of the Olympic Park near the train station, heading west towards the Black Sea. The cars traverse the outer edge of the central "medals plaza", the podium for Olympic medals presentations. The circuit will circle the plaza and head east to the Bolshoy Ice Dome and navigate a series of tight corners before turning north where it will skirt the edge of the Olympic Park, above the main Olympic Village and the Adler Arena Skating Center. It will then pass the skating and curling centres, before funneling up behind the pit paddock toward the train station, and completing a circuit with a one hundred and eighty degree bend. Some 1.7 km of the circuit length will take place on public roads.