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. :cool:

[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]

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

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

http://images.gpupdate.net/large/98750.jpg

[kingofthering]

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...

It was supposed to be shaped like the (first) character for Shanghai.

[Daz27]

I didnt realise crap had a character...

[RacingManiac]

Shang Hai, the track is supposed to shape like "Shang".....

[Jack_Bauer]

Istanbul specialist Felipe Massa notched up his third successive Turkish Grand Prix pole position with a consummate display for Ferrrai. It wasn't all glory for the Scuderia as McLaren took second and third place on the grid with a strong performance, leaving World Champion Kimi Raikkonen in fourth. The top two teams seemed to be in a class of their own as fifth place man Robert Kubica was over four tenths of adrift of Raikkonen.

The session got underway in cooler than expected conditions with crosswinds potentially causing problems in some of the Istanbul circuit's extremely high speed corners. With the withdrawal of the Super Aguri team the qualifying rules were re-jigged somewhat, meaning that just five cars would be eliminated in the first two sessions. This may at first seem an advantage for the remaining teams, but in reality the Super Aguri's were always virtually guaranteed to be eliminated in the first session anyway. This means that now there is increased potential for someone from the more established teams to drop out in the first session if they make a mistake.

The big losers with the loss of Super Aguri will probably be Force India as they are now going to be odds on favourites to be filling the back row of the grid at every Grand Prix, and so it proved to be here as Sutil and Fisichella were the two slowest cars in the first session. They were joined on the sidelines by Sebastien Bourdais in the Toro Rosso, but also surprisingly by Kazuki Nakajima and Nelson Piquet. Nakajima had looked strong earlier in the weekend so will be extremely disappointed with his performance today. Piquet though was the worst performer in qualifying today.

At the start of the season in Melbourne Piquet had the excuses that he was struggling with a poor handling car, and that he was driving a completely unfamiliar circuit. Now though he has a Renault that is performing very strongly and is driving circuits that he has driven plenty of times before. He is fast running out of excuses and has nowhere to hide after that dismal display.

The stars of the first session were Timo Glock and Sebastian Vettel. Vettel impressed simply by making it to the second session in the Toro Rosso, and Glock impressed with an excellent P4. However, neither driver could replicate the magic in Q2. Glock especially disappointed by somehow ending up last of the 15 remaining runners, behind Vettel even. The guy clearly has pace but needs to build much more consistency into his driving.

They were joined in the drop zone by the two Hondas of Button and Barrichello and the Williams of Rosberg. Honda seem to have struggled a little this weekend after a couple of really promising displays in the last few races. Williams too are struggling a little and are dropping further behind midfield rivals like Renault and Red Bull. They are struggling to live up to their pre-season form.

Coulthard put in an excellent lap in this session to get through to the final shootout for the first time in a while. It had been reported by some that he was under pressure from the team after a couple of poor races. He certainly answered a few of those critics with his performance today. He eventually finished in 10th place on the grid but will be encouraged by this showing. In fact, the whole Red Bull team will be encouraged after Mark Webber put together an excellent lap to take P6 in the sister Red Bull.

In between the two Red Bulls were Fernando Alonso, showing Renault's big improvement in pace, qualifying specialist Jarno Trulli, and Nick Heidfeld in ninth. It was a disappointing performance from birthday boy Heidfeld, and capped a pretty disappointing day for BMW all round. They were expecting to be able to challenge the Ferrari and McLaren drivers for places on the front two rows, but in truth were no where near. After a superb start to the season it seems that maybe the BMWs are struggling to live with the pace of progress at the pointy end of the grid.

There were a couple of points of real interest in the final minutes as the big boys went for the glory. Firstly, Lewis Hamilton looked to be having all sorts of balance problems in the daunting turn 8. He had a massive slide on one hot lap, and did brilliantly to even stay on the track at all. This was on the harder, prime tyre so it was expected that he would make the switch to the softer option tyre for his final run. Lewis surprised everyone however by sticking on the harder compound for his final lap. He apparently felt that the softer tyre was losing performance by the end of the lap and preferred to run with the hard. He drove an excellent lap and put his McLaren 3rd despite still fighting the car all the way through turn 8. His teammate showed what the McLaren could do on the softer tyre though by putting together an excellent lap to get onto the front row of the grid alongside Massa.

Kimi Raikkonen was unable to challenge the McLarens or his teammate after running into trouble on his final lap. There seemed to be a miscalculation from Ferrari in terms of getting Kimi some clean air on track, and he ended up catching Fernando Alonso's Renault in the middle of his hot lap. He undoubtedly lost a tenth or two negotiating his way past the Spaniard and his chance at pole was gone.

With Kimi's traffic problems and Hamilton's unusual decision to go with the harder tyre it is hard to get a good read on the fuel loads of the top four runners, so we will have to wait until tomorrow's first stint to see how things pan out. The McLaren team will see this as a perfect opportunity to hit back at Ferrari with Kovalainen and Hamilton both with the chance to pressure Felipe Massa off the start line. We have seen Massa crumble under that sort of pressure before, but this is the track that he appears to be the most comfortable on so he should have enough in reserve to hold off the silver cars. We shall see...

Qualifying Times

01 F. Massa Ferrari 1:27.617
02 H. Kovalainen McLaren 1:27.808
03 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:27.923
04 K. Räikkönen Ferrari 1:27.936
05 R. Kubica BMW 1:28.390
06 M. Webber Red Bull 1:28.417
07 F. Alonso Renault 1:28.422
08 J. Trulli Toyota 1:28.836
09 N. Heidfeld BMW 1:28.882
10 D. Coulthard Red Bull 1:29.959
11 N. Rosberg Williams 1:27.012
12 R. Barrichello Honda 1:27.219
13 J. Button Honda 1:27.298
14 S. Vettel Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:27.412
15 T. Glock Toyota 1:27.806
16 K. Nakajima Williams 1:27.547
17 N. Piquet jr. Renault 1:27.568
18 S. Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:27.568
19 G. Fisichella Force India F1 1:27.807
20 A. Sutil Force India F1 1:28.325

[faksta]

Kovalainen goes pretty amazing, having in mind his great collision during the last race.
BTW, it was said that there are some potential buyers for Super Aguri already...

[faksta]

Bridgestone is mistaken with tyres, we'll see what will it turn into.

[Jack_Bauer]

Also of interest this morning, somehow two DOGS managed to get onto the track during the GP2 race. One got away safely, the other was hit by Bruno Senna. Fortunately Senna wasn't hurt, but his car was pretty badly damaged. Absolutely baffling how dogs can be allowed to get onto the track at ANY race meeting let alone a Formula 1 race day.

There are rumours that the organisers are going round tranquillizing any remaining dogs at the circuit!

[Jack_Bauer]

Wow, pretty abysmal driving from Fisichella.

Disastrous start for Raikkonen dropping to 6th with Hamilton to 2nd

[Dino Scuderia]

Agreed. But Kimi is making up some ground.

Before the race Ron said Hamilton should have been on pole but he overdrove the car.

[Jack_Bauer]

Stunning pass from Hamilton! Good clean racing from the pair of them.

Gonna be interesting to see how far Hamilton can go with his short fill at the first round of stops.

[Motominded]

hamilton has yet to run the soft option

[john14]

Hamilton's driving is usually excellent. :) If I was at home I would be watching the race. :( I'm Irish but Hamilton is my favourite F1 driver even if he is English. :D

[faksta]

Not exactly so clean, as Hamilton made Massa to make a mistake by turning his wheel to Massa's side.

[faksta]

Kovalainen vs Rosberg was cool...

[Jack_Bauer]

Not exactly so clean, as Hamilton made Massa to make a mistake by turning his wheel to Massa's side.

Massa tried to head for the apex but had to back out because he realised Hamilton had out-braked him. Nothing unclean about it. That's just what happens when someone out-brakes you up the inside.

[faksta]

Nope, I'm not blaming him, it's an ordinary trick, but I think Hamilton could get his car into that curve without turning at Massa - there was some space for it.

[Motominded]

Congrats to Massa for his 3rd win at Turkey

Great Finish for Hamilton, you can see that Mclaren has work to do to get the setup on the softs right.

Raikonen did well to come back from his bad start. All he needs is points and with a nine point lead on Hamilton 3rd would still be a good result.

[Jack_Bauer]

Felipe has secured an excellent pole to flag victory for the third successive year with an excellent performance, and played his way firmly back into contention in the title race. Behind him there was a fantastic scrap for second place between the two drivers currently at the top of the points standings, Raikkonen and Massa. It was a thrilling race with passing, some great wheel-to-wheel racing, and some fascinating strategy.

It was the perfect start for Felipe Massa who lead the pack down the very short straight into turn one, but there was the customary opening lap drama behind him. Hamilton got an excellent start and made it past his team mate to squeeze into P2. Kovalainen seemed to get off the line well but strangely bogged down and was falling into the clutches of Raikkonen and Kubica. Kubica made a successful pass around the outside but Kimi found himself boxed in on the inside and had to back out of the throttle. It wasn’t enough to stop coming into light contact with Kovalainen and caused a left rear puncture to the unlucky McLaren driver. As a result of Kimi slowing Fernando Alonso was also able to get past and into fifth place

At the back of the grid there was a rather nasty collision caused by Giancarlo Fisichella. From the back row of the grid he went steaming into the braking zone at turn one way too fast and launched his Force India right over the back of Nakajima’s Williams. In the process he also punctured ‘Mr Unlucky’ Sebastien Vettel’s tyre and damaged his own team mate’s front wing. In his defence there were cars jinking left and right in front of him, but a man of his experience should know better than to go screaming so fast into what is a notoriously tricky first corner. This is the third year in a row that Fisi has failed to make it past the first corner.

During the first stint there emerged a great battle for the lead at the front of the pack. Massa and Hamilton were in a class of their own as they traded fastest laps consistently, and rapidly dropped third placed man Kubica. Raikkonen was making a good recovery and managed to get back past Alonso, although in truth Alonso just gifted him the position. We know the Ferrari is the much faster the car, but it would have been nice to see at least some kind of a fight from a double world champion. Very disappointing.

Entering the first round of pit stops Hamilton was the first man to blink, coming in surprisingly early. He was catching Massa and in truth was probably being held up a little. Whether he was really completely out of fuel or decided to change strategy mid-race we will have to see, but it was a bold move to come in so early. It was a very short stop, and it looked like he was running a risky and very bold three stop strategy. Massa came in a few laps later and was able to emerge from the stop in front of Hamilton, but the young Brit had the bit between his teeth and with a lighter car was very quickly pressuring Massa.

Championship leader Raikkonen was the last of the front runners to stop, which put his qualifying performance into perspective somewhat, and he was able to get out comfortably in front of Kubica. Meanwhile, further down the field there was a snake of very close cars in the midfield with Piquet, Button and Glock and ahead of them Trulli was getting racey with Coulthard.

With his aggressive pitstop strategy Lewis Hamilton knew he had to get past Massa as soon as possible, and he did just that. Despite Massa taking a very defensive line on the long run down to turn 12, there was just a hint of a gap and Hamilton took it with a perfectly executed late-braking manoeuvre. With clean air in front of him for the first time Hamilton set about gaining as much of an advantage as possible, and he quickly romped away into the distance. This period would perhaps decide the fate of the race.

After another super quick pit stop from the McLaren boys Hamilton was back out on the track, but behind both Ferraris. It looked as though Massa had done enough whilst following Hamilton to be able to hold onto his lead and his incredible record at the Turkish Grand Prix. Hamilton though was within a couple of seconds of Raikkonen. The story of the race would now be about who would come out on top out of the two championship protagonists.

There was some fantastic racing further down the grid, facilitated by the excellent design of the Istanbul Park circuit. Kovalainen was fighting his was back through the field after his early puncture, putting some great moves on the back markers. He had one particularly good fight with Toyota’s Timo Glock, who is well known from his GP2 days as being one of the most aggressive wheel-to-wheel racers around. He wasn’t about to give up his position without a fight! Although the Glock did well to fend him off through the final complex of corners, Heikki was able to power past him down the pit straight. Either the Mercedes engine has a big horsepower advantage over the Toyota, or the McLaren has a lot less drag. Nelson Piquet also had a great duel with Jenson Button just in front of them.

After Hamilton’s final splash and dash style stop he emerged fractionally in front of Raikkonen. Now however he was on the soft tyres which he hated so much throughout free practice. Could Hamilton hold off the Flying Finn?

In the end he was able to keep the world champion at bay by just 0.4 seconds and secure his best result for quite a while. He has a huge debt of gratitude to his pit crew who put together three fantastic stops which enabled him to squeeze ahead of Kimi for the final stint.

The BMWs followed in fourth and fifth, but in truth they were nowhere near the pace of the leaders. They have definitely fallen back somewhat since the last race. Alonso put in a decent performance to beat Mark Webber fairly comfortably, and Nico Rosberg was the final point scorer. He had one of the best battles of the race with his old GP2 sparring partner Heikki Kovalainen, but eventually got back ahead of him after the McLaren driver’s final splash and dash. Coulthard finished ninth after a good race-long battle with fellow veteran Jarno Trulli.

In the end, after all the drama of the race the biggest thing we learned from the race was that Ferrari are no longer creeping ahead of the pack in terms of pace. McLaren have definitely pegged them back somewhat. This bodes extremely well for the rest of the championship. If there are plenty more close battles like this for the rest of the season then Formula One fans will be in for a treat!

[Zytek_Fan]

Anyone else think the voice for the intro was absolutely terrible?

[Ouz]

Hey, I've been there and took loads of pics & videos. :) It was my first time, so I was excited a bit :P I even got the photos from the "first-bend" crash. Here they are:

[Kitdy]

Anyone else think the voice for the intro was absolutely terrible?

What are you referring to?


Hey, I've been there and took loads of pics & videos. :) It was my first time, so I was excited a bit :P I even got the photos from the "first-bend" crash. Here they are:

Nice pics there Ouz. Did you enjoy it?

[Ouz]

yep, hell of a good time.
I've got a lot more, may be I'll upload some selections later today.

[henk4]

Nice stuff, thanks.

[Ouz]

here you go

[Ouz]

here you go #2 :)
the fifth pic is the parking lot behind my stand.

[faksta]

What are you referring to?

The performance of Turkish national anthem, I believe.

[Zytek_Fan]

The performance of Turkish national anthem, I believe.

No, the commentator that was talking before the F1 circle and logo thing.

[Kitdy]

No, the commentator that was talking before the F1 circle and logo thing.

I didn't hear that. Was it on Speed's coverage?

[Zytek_Fan]

I didn't hear that. Was it on Speed's coverage?

Yeah, and it should have been on the international feed as well...

The commentator's voice just bothered me because it was almost monotone, and it lacked enthusiasm :eek:

I'm glad Speed has a good F1 commentator team, even though as a TV channel, Speed sucks.

[Kitdy]

Yeah, and it should have been on the international feed as well...

The commentator's voice just bothered me because it was almost monotone, and it lacked enthusiasm :eek:

I'm glad Speed has a good F1 commentator team, even though as a TV channel, Speed sucks.

I was pretty tired but on my version the volume of the background was turned down very low while the pre-race was covered by the Canadian TSN crew who then hand it off to ITV's James Allen and Martin Brundle for the race. I've only seen Speed's coverage a few times at my friends house and I can't really remember the quality of their announcing. Out of curiosity, when does the Speed pre-race begin half an hour before the race or 1 hour before?

I think ITV's coverage may begin 1 hour before the race. Can anyone confirm this?

On another note, James Allen seems to be widely derided by F1 fans but I've never found him to be that annoying, sure he sometimes says some obvious things to the harder-core F1 fans, but for casual fans his commentary is sufficient - it only really bothers me when he makes mistakes identifying drivers and the like, but I think Brundle makes the same mistakes as well. I also enjoy Allen's rather distinct voice.

Furthermore, I wouldn't say that the announcers on the BBC are gonna be any better. With the entrance into the sport of Lewis Hamilton, I could see the BBC attempting to draw more casual and new fans into watching races and using announcers that will further explain to the rules, mechanics, strategy, etc to new fans tuning in to watch Britain's new phenom. I could easily see the quality of announcing in the eyes of seasoned F1 fans decrease after the move to the BBC. I can only hope that they retain Brundle who is quite competent, or somehow coax Murray Walker out of retirement though I think this is extraordinarily unlikely.

[Rockefella]

Like Zytek said, Speed may suck as a channel, but their commentating is quite good. Plus, it helps that the British commentators don't jerk off about Lewis Hamilton.

[Ouz]

The commentator's voice just bothered me because it was almost monotone, and it lacked enthusiasm :eek:


Oh, now I see what you mean.
The comentator was Turkish, and the stupid man concentrated so hard on keeping a decent "british accent", he couldn't tell anything enthusiastically at all. Even the comments he made in Turkish sucked, he didn't know much about racing, but then again not so many people in my country know much about racing anyway...