The Sochi Autodrom is a 3.63-mile (5.84-km) raceway built around the Sochi Olympic Park, where the 2014 Winter Olympic Games were hosted, in Sirius, along the Black Sea coast in southern Russia. The architect in charge of the road course design was the world-famous Hermann Tilke, who also worked on Formula 1 circuits like the Red Bull Ring, the Circuit of the Americas, or the Marina Bay, to name a few. Sochi Autodrom has been the home of the Formula 1 Russian Grand Prix since 2014 and is a unique category of its own because it is a permanent street circuit that evolved from the inner roads of the Olympic city.
The southern location of Sochi means the city can boast of having Russia's warmest climate, with average temperatures near 20°C (68°F), cool winters, and warm summers. The track surface tends to be wet year-round, and there are snowfalls on the circuit during January. There are 19 corners in Sochi Autodrom, which features a hard-to-maneuver layout with a good balance between tight-angle turns and sweepers. Some trademarks of the circuit are its 750 meters (2460 feet), omega-shaped corner number four, or the fast-paced sweeping turn combination of corners 12 and 13, where racers rush at 240 km/h (150 mph).