Formula 1 and Russia are no more, with the only real highlight a Lewis Hamilton slip up.
The Russian Grand Prix was held at the mind-numbingly boring Sochi Autodrom from 2014 to 2021.
And Hamilton may have been the only person who enjoyed it.
The Brit won five of those eight races, repeatedly helping himself to 25 points in his race to six more F1 titles, taking his haul to a record-equalling seven.
However, he might have stopped feeling so comfortable in 2015 when he had a hiccup with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Winning back-to-back races since its inception, the now 40-year-old got a little overexcited during its second while on the podium.
Putin presented trophies to the top three and all went to plan, that was until the champagne came out.
The former KGB officer got a dousing, and Hamilton – the man accused of the accidental spray – didn’t see him again until a year later.
Back in Sochi in 2016, Hamilton finished second to Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg, and another podium finish meant another Putin encounter.
This time the president joined the drivers in the cooldown room, and through a translator he told Hamilton: “I am accustomed to awarding you something each year. Year, after year…”
To which the Brit replied: “This year I won’t spray you with Champagne. Last time it wasn’t me. It was someone else!”
And Putin awkwardly replied: “You are doing well – with champagne and with the race.”
F1Hamilton made a joke through a translator when they reunited[/caption]
F1 would lap Sochi five more times after that reconciliation.
And it finally provided some entertainment in 2021 when a rain-soaked race caused chaos and Lando Norris famously forfeited his first win with a disastrous tyre choice.
Had he have claimed victory he would have beaten Lewis Hamilton’s record of being the youngest Briton to win a Formula 1 Grand Prix, aged 18.
That was that, though, as in 2022, the Grand Prix was canceled following Putin and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
There was more drama in the paddock too, with Russia driver Nikita Mazepin scrapped by Haas, even though his father, who had close ties with Putin, was the team’s lead sponsor.
Speaking before F1 and the FIA decided to end the event, Hamilton said: “When we see injustice, it is important we stand against it.
“My heart goes out to all the courageous people of Ukraine who are facing such terrible attacks for simply choosing a better future and I stand with the Russian citizens who oppose this violence and seek peace, often at risk to their own freedom.”
