2008 Formula One Turkish Grand Prix

[Jack_Bauer]

This weekend sees the fourth running of the Formula One Turkish Grand Prix at the already much-loved Istanbul Park circuit. Ferrari head into the weekend as very much the team to beat, as they top both driver and constructor championship standings. McLaren and BMW though are not too far behind and will both be looking to get in amongst the two Ferrari drivers and cause an upset.

The Istanbul Park circuit is one that has become an instant favourite of most of the drivers due to its many elevation changes, mixture of high and low speed corners, and the now infamous super-fast Turn 8. I seem to recall Jarno Trulli being the only driver on the grid who wasn't really that excited by the track, but when even Kimi Raikkonen is moved to describe the track in glowing terms like "terrific" you know it's a goody. I don't think I've ever heard Kimi use such an expressive word!

I suspect Kimi will be even more enthusiastic about the circuit if he and Ferrari can continue their fine early season form and take another 1-2 finish like last time out in Spain. Kimi will have a fight on his hands though; if not from McLaren and BMW then certainly from Felipe Massa who loves this circuit, and beat Kimi here fair and square last year. McLaren (with a fully fit Heikki Kovalainen) and BMW will be desperate for it not to finish as another Ferrari 1-2 however, as they are already losing vital ground in both championships. They both need to try and claw back that crucial tenth or two that they have been missing in the past couple of races in relation to the Ferrari. We will see what difference any revisions to the aero packages will make on this relatively low downforce, high speed circuit.

Ferrari themselves have made arguably the most significant change in terms of aero by choosing to ditch the 'holey nose' debuted in Barcelona in favour of a more traditional front aero set up. They were still blisteringly quick before Spain anyway, so I don't think any Tifosi need worry about this apparent retrograde step.

Elsewhere it looks to be business as usual in the vicious and closely fought midfield battle. Renault will be looking to consolidate the advantage that they managed to eek out over their rivals in Spain, although I doubt there will be any repeat of Fernando Alonso's headline stealing low-fuelled qualifying performance. There was some wild speculation over the past week that Red Bull stalwart David Coulthard was on the brink of being given the boot after his troubled start to the 2008 season. This appears to have just been some over active imaginations though, as he is here and racing, and shows no signs of being dumped by the team. If he were to be dropped it would be extremely harsh of the team considering everything DC has done to help build the team since its inception in 2005.

This race should see the swan song of the current Toro Rosso chassis before the move to the brand new car that Sebastien Bourdais stuffed into a wall in testing three weeks ago. Honda have announced that Rubens Barrichello will be running a special livery to commemorate his record 257th Grand Prix appearance.

The only other news to report is that, due to the demise of Super Aguri, Saturday's qualifying session has been amended. The first two sessions will see just 5 cars eliminated each instead of 6. This will leave the usual 10 car shoot out for the thrilling final session of qualifying.

[Zytek_Fan]

BMW is going to come out guns blazing this weekend I'm sure.

[Kitdy]

Something I have wondered is that under the current Concorde Agreement, 20 cars must participate in every race.

I'd say most of the remaining teams are stable, except for possibly Toro Rosso in 2010 and Force India. I think to stay strong and be more competitive, F1 needs to lure more manufacturers to come into the sport. The recent entries of BMW and Toyota as constructors, and re-entries of Honda and Renault are I think, good for the sport, and one of the things that I like to see is big name competitive, high budget teams competing against one another. I don't mind the long time "privateers" McLaren and Williams, and also enjoy cheering for the small guys (Sato passing Alonso last year was priceless) but in general, I like to see big name manufacturers in the sport.

Well, I went on a tangent there, but back to my point: there are potentially two more teams in F1 that could be in future trouble I predict as I mentioned above: the team that is now Force India has gone under so many ownership changes in the past few years and may be gone. What would happen if we lost another team and there were only 9 teams?

Would two teams run three cars or some such thing?

Finally, what is the FIA's problem with customer cars? Do they fear a spec series or think it is unfair to privateers? Privateers have a precedent of being in F1 from back in the day anyways. Is this customer car loophole going to be sealed in 2010 like I have heard?

[Kitdy]

Originally Posted by Zytek_Fan

BMW is going to come out guns blazing this weekend I'm sure.

Why are you such a BMW fan? I like them as well as they are a new entry and yet a large company, and also, something new and fresh (somewhat). I also want to actually watch a season where more than 2 teams win a GP. Maybe some luck will kick in and BMW or even Renault will pick up a win - but at this point, it looks unlikely that the early challengers McLaren will even get a shot at 1st spot on the podium.

[Zytek_Fan]

Originally Posted by Kitdy

Why are you such a BMW fan? I like them as well as they are a new entry and yet a large company, and also, something new and fresh (somewhat). I also want to actually watch a season where more than 2 teams win a GP. Maybe some luck will kick in and BMW or even Renault will pick up a win - but at this point, it looks unlikely that the early challengers McLaren will even get a shot at 1st spot on the podium.

I'm tired of seeing the same old cars win.

[Daz27]

you know, i really like the turkish track, its so much better than that crappy chinese one and it was designed by the same guy, how did he f*** the chinese one up so bad... In case your wondering, Ive been playing F1 2006 on the PS2 again...

[Jack_Bauer]

In Friday's first practice session Ferrari proved that they definitely have the pace at the Istanbul circuit, but question marks remain over their reliability. Felipe Massa finished first on the grid ahead of the McLarens of Kovalainen and Hamilton, but Kimi Raikkonen finished dead last after a gearbox problem meant he couldn't do any serious running. Ferrari are confident that the gearbox will not have to be replaced and that they will not incur any penalty, but it's still not a great start for the WDC leader.

Times throughout the midfield seemed to be a lot more spread out than they have been in the past couple of races. Where at Barcelona a couple of tenths separated the midfield teams, here there is more like a couple of seconds separating them. This is quite a long, high speed circuit, and any weaknesses in straight line speed will be really exposed here.

Renault again looked strong with Fernando Alonso fourth fastest. BMW didn't have the best of sessions with Heidfeld in seventh and Kubica way down the field after suffering from rear suspension trouble. The Hondas looked strong by taking fifth and eighth place. The teams from the Red Bull stable seemed to struggle the most with none of their four cars breaking the 1:30 barrier. They all finished roughly 3 seconds off the pace of Massa's Ferrari.

Practice One Times

01 F. Massa Ferrari 1:27.323 16 laps
02 H. Kovalainen McLaren 1:27.456 17 laps
03 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:27.752 15 laps
04 F. Alonso Renault 1:28.284 16 laps
05 J. Button Honda 1:28.919 12 laps
06 K. Nakajima Williams 1:29.002 19 laps
07 N. Heidfeld BMW 1:29.024 21 laps
08 R. Barrichello Honda 1:29.068 11 laps
09 N. Piquet jr. Renault 1:29.082 23 laps
10 T. Glock Toyota 1:29.103 19 laps
11 J. Trulli Toyota 1:29.329 24 laps
12 R. Kubica BMW 1:29.330 7 laps
13 N. Rosberg Williams 1:29.367 20 laps
14 A. Sutil Force India F1 1:29.756 23 laps
15 G. Fisichella Force India F1 1:29.811 23 laps
16 M. Webber Red Bull 1:30.088 21 laps
17 D. Coulthard Red Bull 1:30.340 13 laps
18 S. Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:30.388 19 laps
19 S. Vettel Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:30.426 21 laps
20 K. Räikkönen Ferrari 1:30.732 3 laps

[Jack_Bauer]

Kimi Raikkonen showed no ill effects of his hampered running this morning by cruising to the top of the time sheets in the second Friday practice session. Things were desperately close at the top of the order this time out with Kimi edging out Hamilton by just 3 hundredths of a second, and Felipe Massa just a fraction behind the top two. The big surprise was that there were two British drivers in the top four, breaking the Ferrari-McLaren dominance.

David Coulthard was the man to raise eyebrows throughout the paddock with a fine lap to take fourth place. It was a remarkable improvement over his seventeenth place from this morning's session. However, the smiling faces were only on one side of the Red Bull Racing pit as Mark Webber binned his car on the exit of turn 6 early in the session, ripping the front end off and bringing out a red flag in the process. He ran a bit wide onto the bumpy run-off area and tried to keep his foot in, but evidently lost traction and the rear end got away from him.

He wasn't the only driver having difficulties with car stability in the high-speed corners, as nearly half the field came very close to dropping it at one point or another. The extra wide run-off areas at the Tilke designed circuit undoubtedly saved a lot of pricey carbon fibre from destruction, and saved lots of extra hours for the mechanics in the pit garages.

Both Renaults nearly lost it in the very first corner of the track, Alonso in particular had a miraculous save early in the session. Hamilton too was seen sawing away frantically at the wheel of his McLaren several times through turns 1 and 2. Rosberg cut across the track at turn 2 also at one point. Jenson Button wisely got out of the throttle and took to the run off area on the exit of the super fast turn 8 as he ran wide and the rear end got loose on him.

BMW's Robert Kubica was also seen bouncing across the track at one point, and it wasn't the greatest day all round for the German team. They are expecting to be right up on the pace of the Ferraris and McLarens this weekend, but have shown no signs of that so far. Nick Heidfeld was overheard on the team radio complaining of a lack of rear stability in the high speed corners. They will have to make a big improvement if they are to be in a position to fight for the top spots in tomorrow's all important qualifying.

Practice Two Times

1. RAIKKONEN Ferrari 1m27.543s
2. HAMILTON McLaren 1m27.579s
3. MASSA Ferrari 1m27.682s
4. COULTHARD Red Bull 1m27.763s
5. KOVALAINEN McLaren 1m27.954s
6. KUBICA BMW 1m28.431s
7. TRULLI Toyota 1m28.619s
8. NAKAJIMA Williams 1m28.664s
9. ALONSO Renault 1m28.681s
10. HEIDFELD BMW 1m28.817s
11. BUTTON Honda 1m28.826s
12. GLOCK Toyota 1m28.849s
13. ROSBERG Williams 1m28.907s
14. FISICHELLA Force India 1m29.008s
15. BARRICHELLO Honda 1m29.024s
16. PIQUET Renault 1m29.212s
17. VETTEL Toro Rosso 1m29.462s
18. BOURDAIS Toro Rosso 1m29.630s
19. WEBBER Red Bull 1m29.633s
20. SUTIL Force India 1m30.832s

[fpv_gtho]

Originally Posted by Kitdy

Finally, what is the FIA's problem with customer cars? Do they fear a spec series or think it is unfair to privateers? Privateers have a precedent of being in F1 from back in the day anyways. Is this customer car loophole going to be sealed in 2010 like I have heard?

The FIA dont have a problem with them. Some of the teams couldnt agree how to handle the 2007 customer cars situation and that jeopardised their planned open book debut for this year. When they couldnt agree to a new 2008 Concorde Agreement that commercially allowed them, they had to keep using the 2007 one which didnt allow them.

[kingofthering]

Hmm... it seems Nakajima's doing pretty

[Zytek_Fan]

Nakajima looks to be pretty consistent.

[Kitdy]

Originally Posted by Zytek_Fan

Nakajima looks to be pretty consistent.

I wouldn't say consistent. If I remember correctly, he was outpaced easily by Nico in the first few races and just in the last two has turned the tables.

Then again, my memory could be faulty.

[Zytek_Fan]

Originally Posted by Kitdy

I wouldn't say consistent. If I remember correctly, he was outpaced easily by Nico in the first few races and just in the last two has turned the tables.

Then again, my memory could be faulty.

He's been pretty good in practice and races, but he's been dismal so far in qualifying for some odd reason.

[Kitdy]

Originally Posted by Zytek_Fan

He's been pretty good in practice and races, but he's been dismal so far in qualifying for some odd reason.

After the start of the season, I figured he'd get thrashed by Nico, but he has done better - as for your analysis, it's spot on.

[Motominded]

Congrats to Rubens ~ The New F1 Iron Man