2011 Turkish Grand Prix

Championship standings

Vettel leads on 68 points, 21 ahead of Hamilton on 47. Hamilton won in China to cut the gap from 24 to 21 points — his first win of the season. Webber is third, ahead of Button in fourth.

Previous race

Hamilton won the Chinese Grand Prix from third on the grid, catching and passing Vettel on deteriorating tyres in the final four laps. Button made a bizarre mistake at his pit stop, pulling up in the Red Bull pit bay rather than McLaren’s, and Vettel was able to rejoin ahead of him. Webber recovered from 18th on the grid — eliminated in Q1 — to take third.

Car upgrades

With Turkey as the first European race of the year, several teams bring upgrades. Williams improve the handling characteristics of their car after a difficult opening three races with no points scored. McLaren, Renault, Ferrari and Mercedes all bring packages aimed at closing the gap to Red Bull. Red Bull were confident they had resolved the KERS reliability problems that hampered their first three rounds; only Vettel’s car featured KERS in the early races.

Tyre choices

Pirelli brings the hard/soft pairing — the same selection used at Istanbul for the past two years. New, more prominent colour markings appear on the tyre sidewalls from this round.

Practice

FP1 was run in wet conditions — the first competitive session of the 2011 season in which Pirelli’s wet-weather tyres were used. Alonso was quickest by 1.4 seconds over the Mercedes pair of Rosberg and Schumacher. Vettel caused a red flag early in the session, spinning into the barrier at the exit of turn 8 after his right-rear wheel caught a kerb, ending his day’s running and leaving him 17th. McLaren ran conservatively — Button and Hamilton completed just five laps between them.

FP2 was held in drying conditions. Button was marginally fastest, just ahead of Rosberg — the only two to break the 1:27 mark. Hamilton ran 31 laps in the session after sitting out most of FP1, finishing third. Alonso ended up 11th after a hydraulic problem cut short his running; he also spun at turn 6 during his limited time on track. Maldonado crashed his Williams into the barrier.