The 2010 Turkish Grand Prix (formally the 2010 Formula 1 Turkish Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held on 30 May 2010 at the Istanbul Park, Tuzla, Turkey. It was the seventh round of the 2010 Formula One World Championship and the sixth Turkish Grand Prix. McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton won the 58-lap race starting from second position. His teammate Jenson Button finished second, and Red Bull driver Mark Webber took third. Hamilton's victory made him the fifth different driver in seven races to win a Grand Prix in 2010.
Before the race, Webber led the World Drivers' Championship jointly with his Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel while Red Bull led the World Constructors' Championship. Webber qualified on pole position with the fastest lap time in the third qualifying session and maintained his lead at the start of the race with Hamilton in second who fended off a challenge from Vettel. The order was maintained until the first sequence of pit stops when Hamilton lost second place after his crew had trouble with fitting one of his tyres correctly. Webber conserved fuel on lap 40 which allowed Vettel to challenge him for the lead but the two collided. Vettel retired and the crash promoted Hamilton and Button to first and second. Hamilton and Button were instructed to conserve fuel for the remainder of the race but the latter had not been given a target lap time and attempted to overtake Hamilton on lap 48 although the former retained the lead which he held for the remaining ten laps to win his first race of the season.
The result extended Webber's advantage over second place in the World Drivers' Championship, now occupied by Button, by five championship points. Hamilton's victory elevated him to third, while Alonso dropped from third to fourth. Vettel's retirement demoted him from second to fifth. McLaren's one–two finish promoted them to the lead in the World Constructors' Championship by one championship point over Red Bull. Ferrari fell from second to third after a poor result, with 12 races left of the season.
Background
The 2010 Turkish Grand Prix was the seventh scheduled round of the 2010 Formula One World Championship after taking a two-week break from the previous race of the season in Monaco. It was held on 30 May 2010 at the Istanbul Park circuit in Tuzla, near Istanbul, Turkey. The Grand Prix was contested by 12 teams with two drivers each. The teams (also known as constructors) were Red Bull, Mercedes, McLaren, Ferrari, Renault, Williams, Force India, Sauber, Toro Rosso, Lotus, Hispania and Virgin. Tyre supplier Bridgestone brought four different tyre types to the race: two dry compounds (soft "options" and hard "primes") and two wet-weather compounds (intermediate and full wet).
Before the race Red Bull drivers Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel were tied for the lead of the World Drivers' Championship with 78 championship points each, with Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso in third with 75 championship points. Jenson Button was fourth with 70 championship points and Felipe Massa was fifth with 61 championship points. Red Bull led the Constructors' Championship with 156 championship points, Ferrari and McLaren were second and third with 136 and 129 championship points respectively, while Mercedes (78) and Renault (65) contended for fourth place.
Webber had won the previous two rounds in Spain and Monaco and achieved pole position in both events. Despite the form, Webber said Red Bull were still wary of their rivals, saying that they had a good foundation and position but no person knew who would be challenging for the title late in the season, but did not feel it would between two people. Ferrari came into the event with a long series of success at the track, having won three of the last five races held at Istanbul Park. The team identified the event as their 800th Grand Prix and their cars carried a logo celebrating the achievement on their engine covers. Alonso was upbeat about their chances in the race, saying that compared to the Spanish Grand Prix, he felt their situation was a little better due to the fact Istanbul Park's characteristics are different and did not require the maximum amount of aerodynamic downforce, but a lower level which was suited to the F10. Alonso also believed it would be a "surprise" if the Red Bull team finished behind him. Hamilton claimed that McLaren would be competitive in Turkey and hoped that he would secure his first victory of the season.
Several teams made modifications to their cars in preparation for the event. Red Bull introduced a revised version of its RB6 chassis for Vettel as his previous monocoque had a small defect which created handling difficulties in Monaco. The team tested a version of McLaren's F-duct system (which increases the top speed of a car) during the Friday practice sessions but removed it for qualifying and the race because both of McLaren's drivers found the device difficult to operate. Ferrari modified their F-duct system so that it would allow their drivers to operate the system by using their left leg. Mercedes arrived at the circuit by reverting to a previous specification of suspension and introduced a longer wheelbase on both their cars as well as a new version of their F-duct system. Williams decided to revert to an old specification of their front wing following accidents involving their drivers in Monaco, though the team brought new brake ducts. Lotus débuted a new rear wing specification which improved forward balance of their chassis. Virgin managed to procure a longer-wheelbase version of the VR-01 for Lucas di Grassi after the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull delayed work to the car because many of the team's staff were stranded in Shanghai for a week following the .
Practice There were three practice sessions preceding Sunday's race—two 90-minute sessions on Friday, and one 60-minute session on Saturday. The Friday morning session was held on a dusty track scattered with debris and several drivers spun off the track. Lewis Hamilton set the first session's fastest time, at 1:28.653; his late lap was almost one second quicker than teammate Button. The two Mercedes drivers were third and fourth quickest; Michael Schumacher ahead of Nico Rosberg. Vettel and Webber set the fifth and eighth fastest times respectively for Red Bull; they were separated by the Renault duo of Robert Kubica and Vitaly Petrov. Alonso and Adrian Sutil rounded out the top ten. The session was disrupted with two minutes to go when Sutil ran wide at turn eight, which caused him to spin backwards and crash into a barrier, breaking his front wing and both front tyres. The session was ended early due to limited time running.
In the second practice session that afternoon, Button set the quickest lap of the day, a 1:28.280, which was nearly one tenth of a second quicker than Webber. Vettel was third fastest followed by Hamilton and Alonso in fourth and fifth. Both Mercedes cars were slower in the session with Rosberg sixth and Schumacher seventh. Kubica, Petrov and Massa followed in the top ten. Webber stopped outside the exit of turn two with an engine failure and engaged in an argument with marshals on preventing the car from moving backwards. In the final practice session, Vettel was fastest with a time of 1:27.086, three tenths of a second faster than the second-placed Rosberg. Hamilton was third and spun sideways into the turn eight gravel trap. He was ahead of Webber who had a throttle problem. Kubica, Alonso, Schumacher, Button, Massa and Petrov completed the top ten ahead of qualifying.
Qualifying
The qualifying session held on Saturday afternoon was split into three parts. The first part ran for 20 minutes and eliminated the cars that finished the session 18th or lower. The second session lasted 15 minutes and eliminated cars that finished in positions 11 to 17. The final session ran for 10 minutes and determined pole position to tenth. Cars which competed in the final session of qualifying were not allowed to change tyres before the race, and as such started the race on the tyres that they set their quickest lap on. The session was held in dry weather conditions. Webber set the fastest time in the final session, and took his third successive pole position with a lap of 1:26.295. He was joined on the grid's front row by Hamilton, who recorded a lap time 0.148 seconds slower. Vettel set the fastest times in the first two sessions, though mistakes on his first two runs due to a roll-bar failure in the final session prevented him from recording a faster lap. He dropped to third overall in the final session. A car setup error caused Button to run too low to the ground through turn eight and was restricted to fourth. Schumacher qualified in fifth and was happy with his starting position despite spinning at turn eight on his final qualifying lap. Rosberg qualified sixth and despite wanting to start higher up the field, he was confident about his race chances. Kubica had problems when running the soft compound tyre, managing seventh, but was happy with his lap in the final session.
He was ahead of Massa, the faster Ferrari driver. Petrov secured ninth in the slower Renault car. Kobayashi rounded out the top ten fastest qualifiers. Sutil was the fastest driver not to advance into the final session in 11th; his best time of 1:27.525 was eight tenths of a second slower than Vettel's pace in the second session. Alonso recorded the 12th fastest time and could not secure a position in the final session as his car touched a white line under braking on the circuit, causing his car to slide. Nevertheless, Alonso thought that the error did not cost him time. He was followed by Pedro de la Rosa in the other Sauber car in 13th, who in turn, was ahead of Sébastien Buemi for Toro Rosso and Williams driver Rubens Barrichello. This formation continued on the eighth row of the grid, which was occupied by Jaime Alguersuari in the second Toro Rosso and Nico Hülkenberg in the other Williams. Vitantonio Liuzzi failed to progress beyond the first session; the Force India driver qualified in 18th. The Lotus cars of Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli lined up in 19th and 20th respectively. Timo Glock and Bruno Senna lined up in 21st and 22nd, respectively, with their teammates Di Grassi and Karun Chandhok qualifying at the rear of the field.
Qualifying classification The fastest lap in each of the three sessions is denoted in bold. Driver Constructor 1 6 Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault 1:27.500 1:26.8181:26.295 1 2 2 Lewis HamiltonMcLaren-Mercedes 1:27.667 1:27.013 1:26.433 2 3 5 Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1:27.0671:26.729 1:26.760 3 4 1 Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes 1:27.555 1:27.277 1:26.781 4 5 3 Michael SchumacherMercedes 1:27.756 1:27.438 1:26.857 5 6 4 Nico RosbergMercedes 1:27.649 1:27.141 1:26.952 6 7 11 Robert KubicaRenault 1:27.766 1:27.426 1:27.039 7 8 7 Felipe MassaFerrari 1:27.993 1:27.200 1:27.082 8 9 12 Vitaly PetrovRenault 1:27.620 1:27.387 1:27.430 9 10 23 Kamui KobayashiBMW Sauber-Ferrari 1:28.158 1:27.434 1:28.122 10 11 14 Adrian SutilForce India-Mercedes 1:27.951 1:27.525N/A 11 12 8 Fernando AlonsoFerrari 1:27.857 1:27.612N/A 12 13 22 Pedro de la RosaBMW Sauber-Ferrari 1:28.147 1:27.879N/A 13 14 16 Sébastien BuemiToro Rosso-Ferrari 1:28.534 1:28.273N/A 14 15 9 Rubens BarrichelloWilliams-Cosworth 1:28.336 1:28.392N/A 15 16 17 Jaime AlguersuariToro Rosso-Ferrari 1:28.460 1:28.540N/A 16 17 10 Nico HülkenbergWilliams-Cosworth 1:28.227 1:28.841N/A 17 18 15 Vitantonio LiuzziForce India-Mercedes 1:28.958N/A N/A 18 19 18 Jarno TrulliLotus-Cosworth 1:30.237N/AN/A 19 20 19 Heikki KovalainenLotus-Cosworth 1:30.519N/AN/A 20 21 24 Timo GlockVirgin-Cosworth 1:30.744N/AN/A 21 22 21 Bruno SennaHRT-Cosworth 1:31.266N/AN/A 22 23 25 Lucas di GrassiVirgin-Cosworth 1:31.989N/AN/A 24 20 Karun ChandhokHRT-Cosworth 1:32.060N/AN/A 24 Source: Notes