Turkish Grand Prix

As one of the newest additions to the Formula One World Championships, the Turkish Grand Prix made its championship debut on 21 August 2005. The event is held at Istanbul Park Circuit – a newly constructed track which was designed by Hermann Tilke. Tilke is a famous German civil engineer and the Istanbul Park Circuit was not his first racetrack project. The circuit is generally considered to be very challenging, as it makes use of the natural contours of the land as well as copies some of the most difficult aspects of other international tracks. It is also one of only three circuits which are raced in an anti-clockwise direction. The other two are the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Italy and the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace, Brazil.

The Istanbul Park Circuit track is 5.34 kilometres (3.32 miles) in length. It is lapped 57 times which adds up to a total race length of 309.72 kilometres (192.45 miles). Although the track has a number of interesting twists and turns, turn 8 is generally considered to be the best and most challenging corner on the track. The turn is basically a combination of four corners which are joined together to form an intense turn with a 5G load capacity that lasts for four seconds. As if the turn itself wasn’t challenging enough, many drivers attempt to take it too fast and this usually results in them spinning off the track. Such was the case in the 2005 Turkish Grand Prix when Juan Pablo Montoya lost his leading advantage by taking turn 8 too fast in an attempt to lap Tiago Monteiro just two laps before the finish. His car spun out of control, tangled with his opponent and both were overtaken by Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen.

Although he has never won the Turkish Grand Prix, the fastest lap time of 1:28.005 was set by Michael Schumacher whilst driving for Ferrari. In 2005 the race was won by Kimi Raikkonen and in 2006 the trophy was taken by Felipe Massa. Unfortunately at the end of 2006 the winners trophy was presented in such a way that the political neutrality policy of the FIA was compromised. Fears that the Turkish Grand Prix might be scratched from the World Championships were put to rest when Turkey was fined $5 million for their inappropriate behaviour.

Felipe Massa went on to claim first place again at the 2007 and 2008 Turkish Grand Prix events, with Jenson Button winning the 2009 event. Turkey is one of the host countries on the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship race calendar, with the action taking place on 28-30 May as the seventh event of the season.

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