Turkish Grand Prix – Key figures
This weekend, Formula 1 cars will race on the Istanbul Park circuit for the 16th round of the World Championship, an opportunity for Motors Inside to review the key figures of this Grand Prix.
2005 – Straight out of the mind of German architect Hermann Tilke, it was in 2005 that the Istanbul circuit made its debut on the Formula 1 calendar. The construction of the circuit cost a total of nearly 290 million euros.
5,338 – This is the distance in kilometers that the drivers will have to complete 58 times this Sunday.
14 – The circuit, atypical because it runs counterclockwise, has 14 turns. The architect drew inspiration from legendary F1 tracks to design some curves, including a turn similar to the one at Eau Rouge (Spa), called “fake red” by some observers. But what is remembered about this Istanbul circuit is its quadruple left turn (turn 8), very demanding for both drivers and their single-seaters.
Despite its appearance in F1 during the 2005 season, we only witnessed 8 Grand Prix races at the Istanbul circuit. From 2011 to 2020, F1 will no longer stop in Turkey, and the circuit will even be rented to a car dealer.
3 – Felipe Massa won the Turkish Grand Prix 3 times (2006-2007-2008), ahead of Lewis Hamilton who has 2 victories on this track. Kimi Räikkönen, Jenson Button, and Sebastian Vettel also won once in Turkey.
1:25.049 – Sebastian Vettel has held the track record since 2011. The best lap time set last year was achieved by Lando Norris in 1:36.806 on a drying and very slippery track.
8 – In 2020, Sebastian Vettel, the Ferrari driver at the time, made an exemplary start by gaining 8 positions on the first lap (P 11 to P 3). The German driver finished in 3rd place in the race just behind Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez.
6 – Valtteri Bottas experienced a real ordeal last year on the Turkish rink, six spins, one lap behind Lewis Hamilton … a performance to forget.
7 – And finally seven, like the number of world titles won by Lewis Hamilton. In 2020, on the Turkish circuit, the British driver came to join Michael Schumacher at the very top of the pantheon of world champion drivers.
