To date, there have been three editions of the Turkish Grand Prix and they have all been won by the current Ferrari driver line-up: for the past two years, victory, having started from pole position has gone to Felipe Massa, while Kimi Raikkonen won the inaugural event at Istanbul Park when driving for McLaren.
“We hope to maintain our momentum from the past two victories here in Istanbul and from the last three consecutive wins so far this season,” commented Team Manager, Luca Baldisserri. “The cars used by Kimi and Felipe are basically to the same specification as those that were used in Spain, with the exception that at Istanbul Park we will not use the slotted (hole) nose. This is because this solution is much more efficient at medium to high downforce levels, whereas Turkey requires less downforce. The new nose worked very well, but as we said when we gave it its race debut in Barcelona, we would only use it at circuits where we deem it will bring us an advantage over a more conventional component.”
The low to medium downforce nature of the circuit, combined with a long straight on the back section, means that theoretically, overtaking is possible, even if passing another car is always difficult. For example, looking back at the 2006 race here, Massa was leading, while in third place, his then team-mate, Michael Schumacher, although having much better race pace than Alonso, was unable to get past the Spaniard, who managed to keep the German behind him for around ten laps.
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