Preview Turkish Grand Prix: Back in action

After a three weeks break it’s time to comeback to action in the 2011 season of the Formula One World Championship. This time we head to Turkey still having in memory the thrilling racing from Malaysia and China.

We arrive in Turkey knowing that this might be the last Turkish in the F1 calendar as the nation’s authorities are refusing to pay the ever-increasing fees to hold the GP, especially when the event wasn’t able to capture the population’s attention and fights against poor attendance.

Still, this would be a pity for the sport, the fans and also to the drivers, as the circuit in Istanbul is considered by many as the best of the recent efforts by architect Herman Tilke. In fact David Coulthard has described it as a ‘modern day classic’ and it is one of the favourite venues amongst many of the current drivers.

Inherently associated to this track is Turn Eight, the long, quadruple-apex high speed corner and one of the most demanding corner on the calendar in terms of tyre wear and that will definitely make it’s job on the Pirrellis. In Turkey teams will definitely need to take particular care of the Pirelli rubber and we can expect several visits to the pit stops by each driver.

We should also enjoy some good overtaking thanks to the last three slower corners. Turns 1 to 11 are mostly medium- and high-speed corners that also make the Istanbul track one of the most interesting of the calendar.

For Turkey we can also expect the first major updates on the most of the team’s cars. Still, some of them will only have everything ready for Barcelona, but everyone will be debuting new parts in an attempt to make up some ground to the front-runners.

One the biggest disappointments of the start of the season is Ferrari that was expected to be the major challenger to Red Bull. The Scuderia have failed to perform and for Turkey President Luca di Montezemolo has demanded improvement. Ferrari will bring several updates to Istanbul and will be hoping to improve on its performance.

McLaren will be willing to continue the success achieved in China, while Mercedes that showed some signs of improvement in Shanghai, think that they can get closer to the front-runners in the European races. With Red Bull probably still thinking on the KERS issue they still remain the team to beat, although Hamilton was finally able to show that the RB7 in the hands of Vettel is not completely unbeatable. Renault can never be pt out of contention as they already grabbed two podium finishes this season.

In the mid-field, Williams is having difficulties in remaining at the front. They are yet to score a point this season and, in Shanghai, Pastor Maldonado was beaten by Heikki Kovalainen’s Team Lotus car. On the first four legs of the championship Sauber, Force India and Toro Rosso have all been fighting for the points.

And if you think you know who might be the winner of the Chinese Grand Prix you definitely have to participate on Autoviva’s F1 Competition. It’s simple, just go here and cast your prediction by leaving a comment.