Daniil Kvyat expects to go into this weekend’s Turkish Grand Prix at a disadvantage as he has no knowledge of the Istanbul Park circuit.
The AlphaTauri driver, who scored the best result of his season to date in the last round at Imola, made his F1 debut in 2014, three years after the championship last raced in Turkey.
“I’ve never raced in any category at the Istanbul circuit,” said Kvyat, “and,
with the current situation, I’ve not even been able to try it on the simulator, so I will be really starting from zero.”
Kvyat has at least been able to study the layout from videos of past races at the track. “Of course I know where the corners go and have watched old races from there,” he said. “I know it runs anti-clockwise, like the last race in Imola, and that it climbs and drops a lot and then there’s the famous turn eight that goes on forever.”
While his team mate Pierre Gasly also lacks real-world experience of the circuit, he has been able to put a few virtual laps in
on his own simulator.
“Like most of the drivers I’ve never raced in Istanbul,” said Gasly, “so it will be a case of discovering the track for the first time.
“The layout looks very interesting and so I’m keen to experience it for myself. I have managed to do a few laps of the track in the simulator and it seems really unique with unusual corners – everyone’s heard of turn eight with all the long left-handers.
