Setting the scene for Turkey

The Turkish Grand Prix is a curious oddity on the Formula 1 calendar. On the one hand, you can make a formidable case for Istanbul Park being the best of the 'next generation' circuits that have sprung up over the past decade or so, being as it combines great facilities and 21st century safety standards with - uniquely for this type of track - a corner that genuinely holds its own as one of the best on the grand prix calendar.

But Turn 8 aside, the track remains something of a white elephant (unusual in itself in Turkey, for you usually find them only in zoos). The fact is, Turkey is a country of over 70 million people, just over 70 million of which aren't particularly interested in a grand prix being held there. A shame, given that Istanbul itself is a great city and, just to the east of its boundaries, it has a pretty good track.

Turkey is a halfway house in so many ways. Istanbul is a geographically schizophrenic city, with one foot in Europe and one foot in Asia (although a geographer would point out that, technically speaking, it's all one continent called Eurasia) and it's the same in F1.

China remains worthwhile for F1 however many fans turn up because, with a population north of a billion, the mere mention of such a large and rapidly growing market triggers a degree of salavation in any potential sponsor. Turkey is a decent-sized market, but not a must-have, and it has yet to capture the imagination of the home crowd. Perhaps it won't until a local driver makes it to F1. That means that it needs to generate at least a modicum of interest to justify its continuing place on the calendar. A drop in ticket prices for this year's event is a good start, although there is little sign of there being a grand prix going on as you drive through Istanbul.

Unlike many other venues, which draw in significant crowds from overseas (the organisers of the Texas Grand Prix, for example, will be expecting to draw significant crowds from outside the state and the country as a whole) Turkey doesn't. Why? Because yet again it slips through the cracks, for it is neither a European race nor a true flyaway (or boataway, if you are looking at it from a freight perspective).

So fans from the European heartland will tend to look either at the races on their own doorstep in Spain, Italy, the UK, Germany, Belgium and Hungary or the flyaways from Bahrain and Abu Dhabi east. Turkey, which would be a good value trip for anyone looking at building a holiday around a grand prix with the added attraction of being just outside a fascinating city, doesn't get a look in. Might be worth considering for 2011, F1 travel fans.

Jarno Trulli and Rubens Barrichello in the pre-event press conference © Sutton

In a way, Turkey is an appropriate place for F1 to find itself given that the sporting world's attention is increasingly directed towards the rapidly approaching World Cup. Fortunately, Slovenia's Miran Alisic ensured that this was addressed during the Thursday afternoon press conference, asking Mark Webber, Michael Schumacher, Jarno Trulli and Rubens Barrichello how their respective countries would do in the upcoming world football jamboree (Karun Chandhok wasn't invited to contribute for India did not make the World Cup - it seems after being knocked out by Lebanon way back in 2007).

While Webber celebrated merely qualifying and Michael Schumacher lamented the injury to the talismanic Michael Ballack (who would surely have got injured had Germany made it to the final anyway), Rubens seemed to be pre-emptively celebrating a Brazil victory. "I'm sorry for both of you," he told Webber and Schuey, which drew a few laughs and left Trulli thoroughly upstaged as he admitted "I'm not really into football."

All good knockabout stuff, but things won't get serious until free practice kicks off on Friday morning. As if Red Bull wasn't quick enough already, the RB6 will run with a version of McLaren's F-duct concept tomorrow - as will Force India - which is very bad news for anyone expecting anything other than a Scuderia Milton Keynes whitewash on Sunday - and very good news for a certain championship-leading Aussie who can be expected to do much better in the world championship this year than his compatriots in South Africa.