On February 12 Mikhail Aleshin, the SMP Racing programme pilot, conducted tests at the Sonoma Raceway, California. This track will host one of the IndyCar Series stages in August 2014.
The raceway in the city of Sonoma, which is located to the north of San Francisco, was built in 1968. This track is considered to be the most difficult one in the IndyCar Series — 50 metres of elevation change, three blind corners and a combination of the new and old pavement give a hard time to the pilots. It was the first acquaintance of Mikhail Aleshin with this challenging raceway.
14 IndyCar racing cars took part in the test sessions held at Sonoma. Apart from the SMP Racing pilot Mikhail Aleshin, one could see a lot of famous racing drivers taking part in the tests — Sébastien Bourdais, the four-time ChampCar Series champion (in 2008 the ChampCar Series merged into the Indy Racing League); Will Power, the three-time vice champion of the IRL IndyCar Series; Tony Kanaan, 2004 champion and multiple winner of the IndyCar races. However, the teams started the sessions later than it had been planned due to heavy morning fog which reduced visibility on the circuit.
Mikhail Aleshin completed the scheduled programme successfully. As usually, the major goal of the session was to select and adjust all the necessary car settings for the qualifying and racing modes. According to the unofficial timing kept the by team, Mikhail demonstrated fourth result among all pilots participating in the tests.
Schmidt Peterson Motorsports General Manager Rob Edwards gave the following comment on the results of the tests: “Mikhail adjusts to the new tracks really fast which had been proved by the tests at Sonoma. His qualification and experience allow Mikhail to start feeling the track in no time — he is able to take advantage of all its positive sides and take sober view at the most difficult sections of the track”.
After the end of the test sessions Mikhail Aleshin shared his impressions about the Sonoma Raceway: “The track is both really beautiful and difficult at the same time — a combination of profiled and blind corners, elevation changes, and old pavement in some sections of the track. The complexity of this circuit brings forward the right choice of strategy and car settings, taking into consideration all peculiarities of the raceway. It’s really important that we were able to complete a successful work out of the scheduled test programme”.
