Turkish Grand Prix – Preview
INTO THE ISTANBUL RING
The Formula One race teams have enjoyed a brief summer break
since the Hungarian Grand Prix at the start of August. But
it's now time to get back to work as this weekend Turkey hosts
the 14th round of the 2006 world championship. The purpose-built
Istanbul Park is the most recent addition to the F1 calendar,
returning fresh from its arrival on the scene last year. Many
drivers were impressed with the track, which features many
ups and downs due to its hilly location near the city of Istanbul.
Panasonic Toyota Racing heads to Turkey looking to add to
its improving performances of recent races as the team bids
to make up ground in the constructors' championship.
Ralf Schumacher (Car 7): "The Istanbul
Park is an exciting, challenging circuit and something completely
different to what we have seen with many modern tracks. There
is a good mix of corners and the hills are unusual on today's
calendar. The track surface is very smooth, there are big
run-off areas and the facilities are good too. We should go
to Turkey looking to come away with a good finish. We've continued
to improve our performance as the season has gone on and apart
from the problems we suffered in Hungary we have been fast
at the last few races. We haven't brought home as many good
results as we would have liked but the trend is clearly on
its way up. The team has turned our situation around and it's
a very good job that they have done. Now we have to build
on that and come away with more points over the last few races."
Jarno Trulli (Car 8): "Toyota has made
big steps forward in recent races and Bridgestone have also
done a good job with the tyres. We could have achieved more
in terms of results so we need to keep pushing for reliability.
But our pace has improved thanks to the hard work of our technical
team so I'm confident that we do well in Turkey. Lots of drivers
were really impressed with the Istanbul Park circuit but it's
not among my personal favourites. It is not the most difficult
track we race on and it has only one really hard corner. That
is a long left-hander which combines three corners together
and is taken nearly flat in fourth or fifth gear. It is a
quick and very challenging set of corners. The rest of the
lap is relatively simple – although it runs anti-clockwise
so the pressures on the neck are the opposite from usual.
With all the progress we have made and another step due for
Turkey we should aim to bring home another strong result on
Sunday."
Pascal Vasselon – Senior General Manager Chassis:
"Most of the people in Formula 1 were really
impressed by how smoothly the organisation went for Turkey's
first grand prix last year. We expected to have logistical
challenges but the event was a positive surprise for most.
The surrounding area is beautiful and now that we have seen
the traffic we have made sure we will stay on the Asian side
of the Bosphorus river this year! The track is an average
downforce circuit featuring a good variety of corners but
what makes it very special is the triple left-hander at turn
8. Most of the simulations done by the teams before last year's
event underestimated how quick it would be. You can reach
speeds of 250kmh and it is very tough both for the driver
and the tyres. The tyres have to be hard enough to cope with
that corner but you still have to compromise for the generally
low grip of the asphalt. Brand new tracks do evolve a lot
so we will have to see how much the asphalt has changed since
last year. Toyota heads to Turkey with an interesting aerodynamic
development around the front wing so we will hope to benefit
from that as we seek a strong result in the race."
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