Turkish Grand Prix Review

The three weeks between Hungary and Turkey had been the summer testing break for all teams except Ferrari, which was a delicious irony considering Maranello's disastrous form in Istanbul. But it had been anything but a quiet period behind the scenes, with several major announcements for 2006. None of them had been a well-kept secret: Felipe Massa was off to Ferrari to replace Rubens Barrichello, who had signed with BAR, while Williams were entering into an engine partnership with Cosworth.

Massa's move came as no surprise; after all, he was managed by Jean Todt's son Nicolas Todt, and he had been a test driver for them in 2003. Yet one could not help but feel as though this choice was a stop-gap measure at worst, and a permanent choice for a number 2 driver at best. Can anyone seriously believe that Massa will eventually fill Michael Schumacher's shoes as the Ferrari team leader? Felipe has produced some impressive drives this year, but no-one thinks he's inevitable championship material.

Barrichello said that he was joining BAR because it was a team that had the potential to fulfil his goal of a championship title. It sounded like another tenuous justification from the king of the unbelievable excuse. BAR is yet to win a race, let alone a title. Apparently, Rubens was also swayed by what the late, great Ayrton Senna had said about Honda's work ethic. Except that Senna last worked with Honda in 1992, and despite their recent increased level of commitment, it's a different Honda these days.

Apparently Jenson Button, who of course is desperate to stay at BAR despite the fact that he has a rock-solid contract to join Williams which he wishes to dishonour, welcomed the signing of Barrichello and even pushed for it within the team. For all the sound-bytes that drivers give about wanting a competitive team-mate to help the team forward, at the heart of the matter F1 drivers are victory-driven egoists. Jenson probably thinks he can whip Rubens as much as Schumi has done.

By all accounts, Williams are probably still aiming at a Toyota engine for 2007, and to that end the Cosworth partnership will only be a stop-gap measure, but there's no intrinsic reason why it's a bad move. Cosworth's experience with V8s is limitless, and their engine for 2006, reputedly very impressive, has been on the dyno for months. Williams can by now start working on their 2006 chassis and start with the clean slate they've needed for a while.

Also, in 1993 when McLaren used customer Ford engines as an interim option, Senna took five wins. But the problem for Williams is going to be more psychological and financial. To move into a customer deal is to revert to the privateer ranks, which in the current climate must feel like a backward step. The blue-chip sponsors may be on their way out, as their backing may have depended on a works engine deal, having Button as a driver in 2006, or both of those criteria.

Of course, a grumpy Button is hardly going to make Williams a peaceful and happy tribe in 2006, especially given Williams' propensity not to mollycoddle their drivers. So, even though on paper a Williams-Cosworth package may not be such a bad idea, it's the destabilisation on the morale, money and driver fronts which is the real worry. That instability could easily mean that the team can't capitalise on the advantages and positives of the Cosworth deal.

Moving to this weekend, and what about the Istanbul Otodrom? Nice work, Hermann Tilke! It has endless undulations, blind corners, combinations of the fast and the slow, it's unconventionally anti-clockwise, and it's a challenge for the drivers, which tends to be what endears drivers to a track, and why Spa, Suzuka and Sepang rate highly. Moreover, it seemed to be a combination of some of the best corners from various tracks around the world, and there's nothing wrong with that!

For example, turns 1 and 2 match the Senna S at Interlagos. The tight turns 4 to 6 calls the mid-section of Jarama to mind. Turn seven, the uphill right-hander is a mirror image of turn 6 at Estoril. Turns 9 and 10 seem to be a tighter version of the left-right chicane midway through Barcelona. Turn 11 is reminiscent of the kink in the Nurburgring before the Veedol chicane, with change in gradient to boot. And the braking zone to the slow turn 12 feels just like the approach to the infamous Dry Sack curve at Jerez.

Not to mention, of course, the awesome, quadruple-apex turn 8, in essence four nearly-flat left kinks in one. Some predicted it would be like the Spoon curve at Suzuka; nothing like it at all! It requires four short stabs at steering input, complete with high G-force loadings. Overnight, drivers were singing its praises and then being caught out by it in equal measure. It looks certain to join Spa's Eau Rouge and Pouhon, Suzuka's 130R and others in the pantheon of great F1 corners.

But while there is no doubt that overtaking will be promoted by this track, and in the early stages there was a lot of passing and re-passing, the fact remains that there were up to 25 overtaking manoeuvres in the first 15 laps, but only around two in the 43 laps thereafter! Clearly, the jumbled grid had something to do with it too. Now, if only we can stop the dependence on aerodynamics and put the emphasis back on mechanical grip, then perhaps we can see just how good the wheel-to-wheel action in Istanbul can be.

We all knew it already, but McLaren proved their much-superior pace once again, and perhaps they may be getting their act together on the reliability front as well. Time will tell if they can now consistently get both cars to the finish. There were still a few niggles, like Juan-Pablo Montoya almost taking his refueller with him at his first stop, and then his off-track dramas in the last few laps, but there is now the sense that they may have finally shaken off Renault for performance, but can they catch up on points?

Raikkonen was masterful. It takes nothing away from the quality of his display to say that he was always going to win given Renault's curious strategy, even if Giancarlo Fisichella had held the lead throughout his first stint. It was just a matter of controlled, consistent, superior speed from both driver and car right from the moment they hit the track for the first time, and being able to respond as the track gripped up to turn up the pace even more.

The two points extra that Alonso lucked into will undoubtedly help, but whether Kimi's points deficit was 22 or 24 (as it is now) going into Monza, Alonso is still safe in the knowledge that 3rd in each race will do, even if Raikkonen wins all of them. It is possible that the Finn could end up with 10 wins this season and still lose the title to the Spaniard who has only clocked up six. Might we, for the first time since its introduction, see the new points system give us a champion different to that under the pre-03 regime?

Perhaps some controversy lies ahead on that front. Meanwhile, JPM seemed resigned to rear-gunner role for Kimi. Was that simply because he couldn't match his team-mate, or because he's accepted that role? We just can't picture JPM ever willingly playing the team game. Of course, he would have carried it out perfectly had he not been hit by Tiago Monteiro in the closing stages, causing a spin plus diffuser damage which, coupled with a worn front-right, caused him to go off at turn 8 and hand 2nd to Alonso.

Monteiro went from being hit in Germany (when he collided with Jacques Villeneuve) to the hitter in Turkey. Of course, backmarkers have a role in not interfering with the front men, and that's twice that JPM has fallen victim to a late-braking backmarker now - his infamous collision with Jos Verstappen at Interlagos in 2001, when he was heading for victory in only his third GP, being the first time. Having said that, he did chop viciously in front of the Jordan, as viciously as Tiago chopped Jacques at Hockenheim...

Renault simply weren't on the pace this weekend. They were a good 0.3 to 0.5s per lap off the McLarens. Neither Alonso or Fisichella had a genuine chance of defeating Raikkonen, especially when they pitted a massive 7-8 laps before the McLaren. This was no imitation of Kimi's strategy in Hungary that so fooled Ferrari; neither of them had the fuel range to pit after Raikkonen at any stage. In that sense, the Renaults' qualifying pace and their assault on Kimi in the early laps was nothing but a false dawn.

Alonso's overall consistency this year still looks like getting him over the line, as long as he doesn't suffer any DNFs or pointless finishes. An average of 3rd per race means he can afford to lose to both McLarens as long as he finishes ahead of the rest. But one gets the feeling that, after endless false starts this year, the final championship chase from McLaren is on. His mechanical reliability record this year is perfect thus far, but does that simply mean he's edging towards his first failure?

In the early stages of the race, the issue of team orders also reared its ugly head at Renault, when Alonso was told that he was faster than Fisichella and should overtake. Fernando almost immediately did so, with unlikely ease. Did Fisi get a message to move over? Was this just common championship sense which should be allowed? The rule against team orders is clearly unclear. When does common sense become blatant result-rigging? To Ferrari, Austria '02 was common championship sense...

A similar thing happened at BAR, when Jenson Button was told to move over if he could to let Takuma Sato get in some clear laps before he pitted; nothing came of it, but again, was that just common race sense or race-fixing? The Brackley cars were on the pace in Istanbul, Button matching the Renaults at worst. It was a good fightback from Jenson especially, and Taku to a much lesser extent, after their disastrous qualifying that saw them both start near the back of the grid.

Button touched the inside kerb in the fourth part of turn 8, which unsettled the car and would have pitched it into a spin but for the Englishman's reflexes. His charge up the field was impressive in the early stages, but once amongst more competitive rivals he found himself without the track position to capitalise on his speed. In particular, he was held up by Jarno Trulli's Toyota right through until the last quarter of the race, and by then there was no time left to challenge Fisichella.

Sato himself had run wide at turn 8 on his qualifying lap, before disgracefully getting in Mark Webber's way during the Australia's run. He rightly lost his qualifying time. His excuse, that he received no message from the pits, was inadequate, especially when it was because he had his finger on the switch that allowed him to talk to his crew but not vice-versa. Even then, he had two things called mirrors! Taku has been rather out of sorts this years, losing some of the admiration he gained last year, and this didn't help.

This kind of thing was always bound to happen in a one-lap qualifying but this is the first incident in almost three years. Perhaps there's something to be said for a rule which forces drivers to return to the pits within a certain time after their lap is completed, depending on the length of the track. So here, where the lap time was around the 1min 30s mark or just under, drivers would have had 1min 40s to return to the pits. Failure to do so would result in either a monetary fine, or better still, a time penalty.

It was a quiet afternoon down Toyota way. Trulli scored points for 6th despite once again lacking race speed in what has been an all-too-familiar bugbear for the red and whites this year. His points consolidated Toyota's hold on 4th in the constructors' title, but that was about it. Ralf Schumacher never fully recovered from falling victim to the over-zealous Massa at the first corner, the Sauber hitting Nick Heidfeld's Williams and ricocheting into the Toyota, shoving Ralf wide.

Red Bull recovered superbly from their disaster in Hungary, through decent qualifying efforts (from Christian Klien in particular), great starts (which have been a hallmark of theirs this year), solid pace, and finally another double-points finish. Klien's form here was as it was earlier in the season, even though David Coulthard used his experience to get in front at the first stops. The young Austrian's performance here should be enough to keep Vitantonio Liuzzi out of the seat even after the Italian GP.

In contrast, Williams scored double-points in Hungary, but it was their turn for a disaster in Istanbul. An improvement in outright pace meant that they had the speed to finish, say, 6th at best, and to that end Webber seemed to be in particularly good form. He would have easily out-qualified Heidfeld had he not had to dive inside Sato, and despite another mediocre start he showed some assertive racing skills for once. His two moves on the Red Bulls, especially the one on the outside of Klien, were awesome.

REJECT OF THE RACE
Williams
Istanbul a deflating experience for Nick and Mark

Webber was further in the thick of the action when he tangled with Schumi's Ferrari as he tried to unlap himself. Although at the point of contact it may have been almost 50-50, Mark had successfully dummied his way inside the Ferrari and on turn-in was actually alongside. Michael simply did not have the presence of mind to know the Williams was there, or alternatively was not cautious enough to let his lapped opponent past, which would have been the wise thing to do.

Mark then came out and labelled Schumi's driving as unsportsmanlike, which may or may not have been true but sounded a bit rich coming from an upstart with one podium to his name against a seven-time World Champion. Webber needs to be careful. He's been faster than Heidfeld but less consistent, and Nick has the better results. His leverage in the paddock has gone down throughout this year. He's trapped in the Williams quagmire at the moment, and should he stay the future at Grove is uncertain.

Alternatively, the rumour mill had him swapping with Fisichella and going to Renault next year, such that Flavio Briatore would have two of his personally-managed drivers in his team. In terms of regular results that may seem like a positive career move for the Australian, but bear in mind that traditionally the second Benetton/Renault looks like a car to avoid, and that on current form and racing ability Webber would surely get kicked by Alonso. Such a switch could easily see his career unravel.

Almost as shocking as Williams' tyre problems was Ferrari and Bridgestone's sheer uncompetitiveness all weekend, that had the red cars only around a second faster than the Jordans and Minardis, although Michael may have been able to push his F2005 up into the points. Barrichello made no impression whatsoever and was probably looking longingly at the garage next door. He complained after the race (now there's a surprise!), but for once it may have been justified.

Schumacher is making a habit of spinning on his qualifying lap on new tracks, having done so in Shanghai last year. The most interesting aspect of his race was that, after his collision with Webber, he came in, had his power steering fixed, went back out, 'gained' as many positions as he could, then parked it again! A sad indictment on this qualifying system which is based on the last race's result, creating an arbitrary connection between races that appears to be unanimously hated by drivers, teams, the media and fans alike.

Down Sauber way, Villeneuve failed to make a great deal of headway in the race once he started near the back thanks to his own qualifying spin, whilst Massa's lunge inside half the field at the first corner was way too ambitious, and destroyed what had been a very good qualifying effort to start 8th. The Brazilian's race ended with a Ferrari engine failure. Given that, and given Ferrari's extremely average season, is Maranello such a great place to be heading in 2006 anyway?

Both Monteiro and the increasingly-anonymous Narain Karthikeyan showed some decent race pace in the Jordans, although both also proved to be mobile chicanes at times. Otherwise, it was another quiet weekend for the Midland-run team. You know that's the case when the most interesting tidbits were that they had belly dancers in their motorhome during the weekend, and that team manager Colin Kolles, a qualified dentist, had performed root canal surgery on Monteiro to cure a toothache.

Similarly for Minardi it was back to the back, although there were flashes of pace at times from Christijan Albers and Robert Doornbos beat the Jordans home, although Enrico Toccacelo struggled to come to grips with both the car and the track on his third driver debut. Compared to some of their recent efforts it was a comparatively disappointing weekend; no doubt they will be hoping for another upturn in fortunes with the Italian GP at Monza coming up in two weeks' time.