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| Turkey facts and stats | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 21 2007, 05:25 PM (67 Views) | |
| Mrs Shrek | Aug 21 2007, 05:25 PM Post #1 |
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Forum Ogre
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* Turkey is one of the oldest inhabited regions in the world and was the centre of the Ottoman Empire. The present-day republic was created in 1923 from the Turkish remnants of that empire. * It spans two continents: the major Asian part, consisting mainly of an arid plateau, is separated from European Turkey by the Bosphorus, Sea of Marmara and Dardanelles. * Turkey is a secular democratic state governed under the 1982 constitution. It joined the United Nations in 1945 and has had a customs union with the European Union since 1996. It is currently seeking to become a full EU member. * Istanbul is Turkey’s largest city and among the biggest in Europe, with a population of over 11 million. It is located on the Bosphorus strait and encompasses the natural harbour known as the Golden Horn, in the northwest of the country. * Straddling the Bosphorus and with a skyline studded with domes and minarets, Istanbul is a beguiling city whose history can be traced from Byzantium and Constantinople to its place at the apex of the Ottoman Empire. Today it hums as Turkey’s cultural heart and good-time capital. * To date there have been no Turkish F1 drivers, but Can Artam did race alongside former Toro Rosso driver Scott Speed in GP2 in 2005. * The Istanbul Park circuit (originally known as the Istanbul Otodrom) is located on the Asian side of the city, close to a newly constructed international airport and just off the TEM motorway linking Istanbul to Ankara. It is situated within a green belt area amid forest and cultivated green fields. * Some 1,450 workers and 40 heavy vehicles were employed during the construction of the track, which began in September 2003. Safety provisions include the installation of 124,000 tyre barriers, while there are two seven-story VIP towers and a state-of-the-art pit and paddock complex. * The total spectator capacity is 130,000, about 30,000 of whom can be housed in the main grandstand along the start/finish straight. * The 3.3-mile, 14-turn track was designed by F1’s favoured architect, Hermann Tilke, who was responsible for the Sepang (Malaysia), Sakhir (Bahrain) and Shanghai circuits as well as numerous revamps of long-standing European tracks. * It incorporates significant elevation changes and several blind crests, and is one of only two anti-clockwise circuits on the calendar (the other being Interlagos). The steepest slope is 8.145 percent. * F1 cars hit close to 200mph on the long back straight between turns 10 and 12, where they are flat-out for around 16 seconds (the right-hand kink of turn 11 being taken easily flat-out). The drivers spend 67 percent of the lap on full throttle. * In contrast to the lukewarm reception given to some of the other Tilke-designed tracks, Istanbul Park was an instant hit with drivers, spectators and the worldwide TV audience. The variety of corners, gradient and overtaking opportunities all received praise, but the feature that really set tongues wagging was turn eight, a thrilling, seemingly never-ending left-hander with four apexes, taken at 150mph in sixth gear. * Turn eight caught out the world's best drivers time and again in 2005. It accounted for Sauber's Jacques Villeneuve and the two BARs of Jenson Button and Takuma Sato in qualifying, and then in the closing stages of the race denied McLaren a much-needed 1-2. Juan Pablo Montoya ran wide at the corner, handing second place and an extra two points to Renault's championship-chasing Fernando Alonso. * But this action was almost 20s back from Montoya's team-mate Kimi Raikkonen who followed up taking the inaugural pole with the first Turkish GP victory. * Felipe Massa scored his maiden Formula 1 pole position and victory at last year's race, finishing ahead of world champions Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher. * Indeed Schumacher finished his career without adding the Turkish GP to his win tally. It went alongside South Africa, Mexico and Luxembourg as the only GPs he didn't win. * Juan Pablo Montoya holds the lap record at the circuit with a time of 1m24.770s set in the race's inaugural year. Link |
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12:59 AM Jul 11