Our top pictures from the Turkish Grand Prix
November 16, 2020
Follow the tale of our Turkish Grand Prix, from a very slippery Intercity Istanbul Park.
Arrived, eventually! After missing his scheduled flight on Wednesday, Romain made it to track straight from the airport on Thursday, on a hastily re-arranged flight.
Getting reacquainted: And it was straight to action with the track walk. It was Romain’s first time around the Intercity Istanbul Circuit since 2011, when he raced at the track in GP2.
An eye for detail: Electrician Troy takes a close look at a component on Kevin’s car.
Time to talk: Kevin chats to Rachel Brookes from Sky Sports, for a feature in their Qualifying build-up show, which you can watch here: https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/12132236/magnussen-uncertain-on-f1-future
Caution – Slippery Surface! Heading out onto the circuit for the first time on Friday morning, Kevin experiences the extremely low grip surface the Instanbul track surface had to offer. A combination of a recently resurfaced track, absence of any support races during the weekend and low track temperatures, meant grip levels were extremely low, making the challenges of learning a new circuit even more difficult.
Mirror, mirror on the wall: Haas F1 photographer Andy Hone catches Kevin getting prepared for FP2 on Friday afternoon, reflected perfectly on the garage panelling.
Learning it all again: After getting to grips with the track on Friday, inclement weather on Saturday brought about altogether lower grip levels. Between them, Romain and Kevin completed just nine laps in FP3.
Wrong place, wrong time: Worsening weather conditions saw Q1 red flagged, with Kevin up at P7 on the standings at the pause. Once the session was eventually re-started, the Dane had to lift off on his flying lap due to double-waved yellow flags. Unfortunately others didn’t and improved their times, pushing him down to P16 and elimination. Retrospective grid penalties for the infringements was little compensation for Kevin, although he was promoted to P13 on Sunday’s starting grid.
A testing Sunday and what could have been: Things were looking up for Kevin after another good start saw him hold a top 10 spot for most of the first half of the race. However a problem on his second pit stop ruined his chances of scoring points. Romain had to retire nine laps from the finish after suffering floor damage after being tagged by Nicholas Latifi.