Back to business in Turkey

TEAMCAR - This coming weekend's Turkish Grand Prix signals the end of the three week summer break and it will be back to business in Istanbul. With both Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher going out of the last race the championship battle still has a 10 point advantage in Alonso's favour, although Schumacher did close the gap with one bonus point thanks to BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica being disqualified.

Turkey made its F1 debut last season and the purpose built, Herman Tilke designed circuit on the Asian side of the Bosphorous won approval from drivers and fans alike. Like Imola and Interlagos, Istanbul is an anti-clockwise track and has a mixture of slow sections and straights, and the already infamous turn eight.

Turkey is expected to be hot -- but then again, so was Hungary -- and the smooth track surface lends itself to medium to soft tyre compounds. "What makes this circuit interesting is that the track surface itself is very smooth similar to Monaco and Montreal and consequently we require a tyre compound which can provide grip as well as durability," said Bridgestone technical manager Hisao Suganuma.