SOCHI, April 22 (R-Sport) - Fresh from winning his third race of the season in Bahrain, Sebastian Vettel touched down in Sochi on Monday to test the Russian city's track for the 2014 Russian Grand Prix.
Vettel and former star David Coulthard are to whizz around the 5.9-kilometer Sochi Olympic Park Circuit, which is yet to be completed, in a regular road car.
The pair were first whisked around the site for the paddock by the deputy governor of Sochi's region of Krasnodar, Nikolai Buturlakin.
Vettel extended his championship lead in the drivers standings on Sunday with an imperious victory in Bahrain, finishing first in his Red Bull ahead of Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean in the Lotus.
Formula One’s first Russian Grand Prix will take place in October next year, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in February.
More than half of the tarmac required for the track has already been laid.
No calendar has been announced for the 2014 F1 season, and the only previous indication of a race date came last month when Sochi’s mayor said the race would be held in November 2014.
An October date for Sochi suggests F1 could rejig the calendar for 2014, as the Russian race would fall among the several Far Eastern races on the 2013 schedule.
The Sochi track uses some of the access roads for the Winter Olympics next February, and Putin said it was a prime example of Olympic legacy at work.
"I'd love to open a tennis school for children in my hometown of Sochi." said Sharapova Maria.
