As the F1 circus heads to Istanbul for the Turkish leg of the championship, The F1 Times, has a look at what makes this stage so special and offers an insight into what to expect.
Turkey made it’s debut on the F1 calendar back in August 2005 with Kimi Raikkonen claiming the first chequered flag in his McLaren. The following three years at Istanbul Park were dominated by Felipe Massa’s Ferrari taking the win in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Jenson Button continued his winning streak of 2009 by taking to the top step of the podium here last year.
This year, it’s hard to see past the Red Bull dominance, although many teams, including McLaren, have insisted that their cars will suit the low downforce requirements of the track.
The track is 3.32 miles long with a total of 14 corners, 8 left-handers and 6 right handers. Turn 8, putting up to 5G on the drivers, is probably the most entertaining of them all, it is a quadruple-apex left hander feeding onto a short straight (175mph), before the tight left-hander of turn 9 – watch out for the McLaren F-Duct out of turn 10 and through turn 11.
The drivers will race for 58 laps, a total distance of 192.25 miles at an average lap time of 1:28 – 1:29, although we could see some 1:32’s this year with the re-fuelling ban adding extra weight to the cars.
Tyre wear in Istanbul is quite high with the fast turn 11 making the front-left work hard and the previously mentioned turn 8 hitting the front-right.
Speaking about his hopes for the weekend in Turkey, McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton is confident of a good result.
“Looking at the characteristics of the track, it’s a place where we should be able to pick up from where we left off in Spain. We think we’ll be able to get another decent result.”
Nico Rosberg told the media that Turkey is the exact opposite of Monaco as far as overtaking is concerned admitting that, “the layout provides some good opportunities for overtaking with a very wide track, lots of late braking zones and gradient changes.”
We should see a good race at Istanbul Park, plenty of overtaking, plenty of high-speed corners, some good long straights – a real test of the cars.
As for predictions, as we said before, we can’t look past Red Bull, however, keep an eye on McLaren
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