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Monday 20th August 2007

Budapest may have lacked overtaking action, but Istanbul should bring more wheel to wheel moves - and that's just in the Mclaren garage...

The Turkish GP may just be two races old, but already the Istanbul track has established itself as a firm favourite amongst F1 fans. It's fast, it's got an abrasive track surface, it has the awesome left-handed Turn 8 taken flat-out and it has at least three good overtaking places.

Last year the two McLaren drivers were racing for different teams, one in a different formula, but both had memorable races. Fernando Alonso was struggling in the face of an all-out Ferrari assault on his Championship lead. At the German GP Renault's mass damper system, which they had been using since the 2005 season, was suddenly deemed illegal by the FIA, giving a boost to Michael Schumacher's challenge.

The Renault team still looked no match for Ferrari at Istanbul and with Felipe Massa qualifying in front of Schumi, it was a question of when not if he was going to move over, with Alonso trailing in third.

And then a Toro Rosso spun on the exit of Turn 1 bringing out the Safety Car and triggering all the teams to rush in for tyres. With Massa still in front of Schumacher, the Ferraris were obliged to queue behind each other in the pits allowing Alonso's Renault to get into second place.

Fernando's defence of second place over the final few laps was a nailbiting experience and one of his greatest ever drives. He held a seven-times World Champion at bay, in a slower car, on a track where overtaking doesn't rely on the driver in front making a mistake. Alonso was immense that afternoon.

His tenacity allowed the quickest man of all that day, Felipe Massa, to get away and win his first GP (he had slowed down loyally, expecting his team leader to come past, and without making it look too obvious).

Massa again should be the man to beat in Istanbul on Sunday. Though a lot has been written about the intra-McLaren battle, there's still a debate to be had in the Ferrari garage. Because although we are patently aware that there are no team orders at McLaren, we know that the Ferrari franchise decrees that Ferrari comes first and driver ambition comes second.

So they will favour the man with the best chance to win. However given their uncharacteristic lack of reliability this season, orchestrating the result might not work out.

Eddie Irvine might have been the first Ferrari World Champion since Jodi Scheckter in 1979 (the year Mika Hakkinen won - 1999) had he not handed points to Michael Schumacher earlier in the season. Schumi broke his leg at Silverstone and his challenge was over.

This was the same year that Mika Salo stood in for Schumacher and got handed Mika Hakkinen's conversations with his McLaren engineers during practice. When this was revealed recently Ferrari angrily pointed out that they weren't spying and that it was radio interference that allowed them to listen in to a rival team. Presumably they weren't compelled to type the comments out and hand them to their drivers, though...

The omens are good for Ferrari to haul back a lot of McLarens' advantage in the next three high-speed races. The closer that they get to leading the drivers' championship, the greater the tension is likely to grow between Massa and Raikkonen as they start to get their eyes on the prize. Raikkonen has waited a long time to get No.1 on his car and is very much his own man. It's going to be difficult telling him to move over.

With Hamilton and Alonso, that's a call which won't come, and even if it did, would probably be ignored. While Alonso had a gritty defensive drive in F1 in 2006, Lewis Hamilton carved his way back through the GP2 field in the most breathtaking fashion. Let's hope ITV re-runs some of that footage from last year. It would certainly be more entertaining than watching Mark Blundell struggle to remember appropriate adjectives, Steve.

As it's a high-speed circuit expect to see BMW up there trying to mix it with Ferrari and McLaren. Renault say they are now concentrating their efforts on 2008 and so the German team might be able to take more risks than normal. Many P-F1 readers assumed that Renault were going to be concentrating on 2008 when they announced their driver line-up of Fisichella and Kovalainen.

The person most worried right now is not Giancarlo Fisichella, but Renault reserve driver Nelson Piquet Junior. Because Flavio Briatore is actively trying to woo his former employee, Fernando Alonso back to the Enstone team. Briatore's outspoken comments about the McLaren/Stepneygate spying scandal hasn't been done for domestic Italian popularity. The man described by Heidi Klumm's aunt as a "wrinkly worthless old has-been" is actively trying to undermine the McLaren team, just as Ron Dennis's early announcement of his signing of Alonso did likewise to Renault in 2006.

Kovalainen has done enough to keep his seat for 2008 and Piquet Junior will have been imagining he could join the ranks of Hamilton, Rosberg and Kubica at Giancarlo's expense. It's all in the balance now.

Red Bull, Toyota and Williams will be fiercely engaged in picking up whatever points that the top five leave behind, while Honda's fears of finishing the season behind SuperAguri will be growing larger and larger.

However all eyes will be on the top four - and the chances are that things are just going to get tighter and tighter. It won't be dull.