Zoom Ferrari pre-event favourites for victory

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."

On previous form, the interesting and technically demanding track would seem to suit Ferrari and especially Massa. And it is also worth noting that last year, the fastest lap went to Raikkonen. However, a strong showing here and in the races so far this year does not make the Scuderia the automatic favourite for victory on Sunday. While the Maranello marque has had strong opposition from two other teams since the start of the year, it is clear that more teams have now made a step forward and so the challenge this weekend might not necessarily come only from the usual suspects. Even if the one-two finish in Spain a fortnight ago might have looked easy from the outside, from the cockpit and the pitwall, it was felt to be a closely contested battle.

This year, the Byzantine race occurs earlier in the season and therefore the weekend will take place in much cooler conditions than previous events, when the Turkish GP was held in late August. This means track temperatures could be around 20 degrees Celsius cooler than in the past. This will affect tyre performance on a track that is always very tough on tyres, not in terms of actual wear, but in terms of loads and stress. This is a particular problem for tyres on the right hand side of the car, caused by the nature of the track layout which features several long corners, the most famous of which is turn eight.