2011 Turkish Grand Prix

25px **2011 Turkish Grand Prix**
Race details
Race {{{Race_No}}} of the 2011 Superleague season

Date	July 14th, 2011
Official name	2011 Turkish Grand Prix
Location	Istanbul Park Istanbul, Turkey
Course	Permanent racing facility 3.317 mi / 5.338 km
Distance	58 laps, 192.250 mi / 309.396 km
Weather	Sunny
Pole position
Driver	Joe Consiglio	Nordsjoen-Mercedes
Time	1:24.339
Fastest Lap
Driver	Joe Consiglio	Nordsjoen-Mercedes
Time	1:25.002
Podium
First	Joe Consiglio	Nordsjoen-Mercedes
Second	Lee Morris	Draig-Ferrari
Third	David Jundt	Red Archer-Renault

The 2011 Turkish Grand Prix for the Superleague - the twelthth race of the season - took place at the Istanbul Park circuit in Turkey on the 14th of July.

Report

After another win in the previous round at Imola, Draig Racing driver Lee Morris' domination of the 2011 GPVWC Superleague was ever more apparent. With Draig's financial problems preventing them from being able to update the car though, their rivals surely saw Turkey as the beginning of a chance to try and turn things around and try to close the ever increasing gap in the points table. Once again, Joe Consiglio was expected to be the main challenger.

Qualifying

Indeed, it was the Nordsjoen Racing driver who took pole position at Istanbul, 3 tenths ahead of his Maltese counterpart Jason Muscat, with Morris having to settle for 3rd. It was a solid return to for Synergetic driver Sam Millar who took 6th on the grid, and a good session for Belgian driver Bart De Vos, one position ahead of Millar. It was a disappointing session for the other Nordsjoen of Pavel Loknovski, who could only manage 11th place after a fueling error during Q2.

Race

Joe Consiglio on his way to victory.

Even before the start of the race, sadly for Mark Stanton, an incident on the formation lap with Ben Morgan forced the Constant Racing driver to start from the pitlane. At the start of the race, Consiglio and Muscat both held their positions, but Lee Morris had a terrible getaway, losing a heap of places, ending up down in 8th position. Early on, it was pretty clear that Consiglio and Muscat had the measure of the rest of the field, with the two Maltese driver's pulling out a gap over 3rd placed Nick Rowland. Part of Morris' comeback involved an incredible 4 wide battle which also involved Bart De Vos, Sam Millar and Dave Carr-Smith. Amazingly, all 4 drivers made it safely through the twisty final section, proving the standards of driving in the GPVWC are always rising! Lap 9, and the first retirement of the day was Millar, just before the start of Sector 2, aggressive downshifting apparently the cause for his Ferrari engine going up in flames.

After working his way back through the field, Morris was up to 4th place, and chasing Nick Rowland down for 3rd, whilst the rest of the field remained relatively stationary before the first pitstops began. It was a sad end to the race for Ben Warren of Nijo Racing on Lap 16, who was running up in a solid 9th place before technical problems with his laptop ended what could potentially have been a run at some points. With some driver's opting to pit earlier than expected, the leaders carried on, with leader Consiglio making his first of 2 pitstops on Lap 18, with Muscat following suit a lap later. Once all the stops had been completed, the top 4 driver's remained in order, with Muscat just over 6 seconds behind Consiglio, Rowland a further 8 seconds back, keeping a 2 second gap between himself and the recovering Lee Morris. This all changed on Lap 23 however, as bad luck once again hit Jason Muscat, with another disconnection from the race, costing him a likely podium, and elevating Rowland and Morris into 2nd and 3rd respectively.

Rowland loses 2nd to Morris in the closing stages.

The battle for 2nd place between Rowland and Morris continued for many laps, but sadly for the Midnight driver, came to an end on Lap 51, after a small error caused Nick to accidently swipe Morris' car, costing Rowland his front wing. In the ensuing pitstop for repairs, Rowland accidentally missed his pit limiter, forcing him to take a drive-through penalty. He rejoined in 4th, just ahead of teammate Carr-Smith, and set about trying to catch the now 3rd placed David Jundt, but it was not to be. Consiglio was completely untroubled for the rest of the race, taking an impressive win, 27 seconds ahead of 2nd placed Morris, who after a very busy race, was probably extremely pleased to take 2nd, and not lose too much of his lead in the championship. Jundt had a quiet race, but nevertheless took a good 3rd place, ahead of the Midnight boys in 4th and 5th, Rowland finishing ahead of Carr-Smith. Ryan Walker finished in an impressive 6th place, recovering from an earlier drive-through penalty after an incident involving himself and Ojay Clark. Bart De Vos took 7th for Triple-Double Racing, with Clark in 8th. Christoph Lichtenstein was delighted with 9th position, somehow able to hold off Pavel Loknovski in the last few laps with some great defensive driving, forcing the Estonian driver to have to settle for a disappointing 10th place.

Despite Consiglio taking the win, the fact Morris was able to recover to 2nd place in the race means his lead is barely trimmed down to 32 points over the Nordsjoen driver. Muscat's unfortunate retirement sees his teammate Jundt move up to 3rd in the standings, 6 points ahead of his Maltese teammate. Dave Carr-Smith rounds out the top 5. In the Constructors standings, the battles are much closer, with Draig Racing leading the way on 169 points, but just 3 points ahead of the constantly improving Red Archer team. Nordsjoen Racing are still in the hunt as well in 3rd place, albeit 33 points behind Draig. Midnight Motorsport are in 4th place with 84 points, with the best of the new teams, Triple-Double Racing moving up to 5th place in the standings with 58 points, pushing Woods Racing down to 6th.

Classification

Qualifying

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Lap	Gap
1	2	Joe Consiglio	Nordsjoen-Mercedes	01:24.339	—
2	5	Jason Muscat	Red Archer-Renault	01:24.665	+0.326s
3	14	Lee Morris	Draig-Ferrari	01:25.032	+0.693s
4	25	Nick Rowland	Midnight-Renault	01:25.150	+0.811s
5	23	Bart De Vos	TDR-Toyota	01:25.282	+0.943s
6	10	Sam Millar	Synergetic-Ferrari	01:25.429	+1.090s
7	24	Dave Carr-Smith	Midnight-Renault	01:25.463	+1.124s
8	6	David Jundt	Red Archer-Renault	01:25.620	+1.281s
9	15	Ryan Walker	Draig-Ferrari	01:25.755	+1.416s
10	19	Ojay Clark	Williamson-Mercedes	01:25.762	+1.423s
11	0	Pavel Loknovski	Nordsjoen-Mercedes	01:26.011	+1.672s
12	7	Mark Stanton	Constant-Renault	01:26.395	+2.056s
13	9	Christoph Lichtenstein	Synergetic-Ferrari	01:26.958	+2.619s
14	12	Ben Morgan	Computrac-BMW	01:27.169	+2.830s
15	3	Mark Wicks	Woods-Mercedes	01:27.226	+2.887s
16	22	Phil Perkins	TDR-Toyota	01:27.233	+2.893s
17	11	Gavin Thomas	Computrac-BMW	01:27.708	+3.369s
18	4	Kieran Ryan	Woods-Mercedes	01:28.05	+3.666s
19	20	Ben Warren	Nijo-Toyota	01:28.270	+3.931s
20	17	David Stanton	ST-BMW	01:28.391	+4.052s
21	21	Chris Williamson	Nijo-Toyota	01:28.448	+4.109s
22	16	Mark Fuller	ST-BMW	01:28.802	+4.463s

Race

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Pitstops	Fastlap	Points
1	2	Joe Consiglio	Nordsjoen-Mercedes	58	1:23:37.440	1	2	01:25.002	15
2	14	Lee Morris	Draig-Ferrari	58	+27.338s	3	2	01:25.025	12
3	6	David Jundt	Red Archer-Renault	58	+1:13.272	8	2	01:25.655	10
4	25	Nick Rowland	Midnight-Renault	58	+1:17.663	4	4	01:25.143	8
5	24	Dave Carr-Smith	Midnight-Renault	58	+1:24.804	7	2	01:26.021	6
6	15	Ryan Walker	Draig-Ferrari	57	+1 Lap	9	3	01:26.244	5
7	23	Bart De Vos	TDR-Toyota	57	+1 Lap	5	2	01:26.095	4
8	19	Ojay Clark	Williamson-Mercedes	57	+1 Lap	10	3	01:26.227	3
9	9	Christoph Lichtenstein	Synergetic-Ferrari	57	+1 Lap	13	4	01:26.112	2
10	0	Pavel Loknovski	Nordsjoen-Mercedes	57	+1 Lap	11	3	01:25.290	1
11	3	Mark Wicks	Woods-Mercedes	57	+1 Lap	15	2	01:26.580	0
12	22	Phil Perkins	TDR-Toyota	57	+1 Lap	16	3	01:26.106	0
13	12	Ben Morgan	Computrac-BMW	57	+1 Lap	14	3	01:26.694	0
14	4	Kieran Ryan	Woods-Mercedes	57	+1 Lap	18	2	01:27.237	0
15	17	David Stanton	ST-BMW	56	+2 Laps	20	3	01:27.622	0
16	16	Mark Fuller	ST-BMW	56	+2 Laps	22	2	01:28.296	0
Ret	11	Gavin Thomas	Computrac-BMW	28	DNF	17	3	01:28.553	0
Ret	5	Jason Muscat	Red Archer-Renault	23	DNF	2	1	01:25.276	0
Ret	20	Ben Warren	Nijo-Toyota	16	DNF	19	0	01:27.942	0
Ret	7	Mark Stanton	Constant-Renault	10	DNF	12	1	01:26.930	0
Ret	21	Chris Williamson	Nijo-Toyota	10	DNF	21	0	01:28.509	0
Ret	10	Sam Millar	Synergetic-Ferrari	9	DNF	6	0	01:26.166	0

Standings after the Race

Drivers' Championship standings

Pos	Driver	Points
1	Lee Morris	151
2	Joe Consiglio	119
3	David Jundt	86
4	Jason Muscat	80
5	Dave Carr-Smith	54
6	Ojay Clark	47
7	Mark Wicks	39
8	Bart De Vos	34
9	Sam Millar	33
10	Nick Rowland	27
11	Adam Rouse	22
12	Christoph Lichtenstein	20
13	Kieran Ryan	18
=	Ryan Walker	18
15	Mark Stanton	16
16	Pavel Loknovski	11
17	Jyri Lylykorpi	6
18	Ben Morgan	4
19	Petter Kaasa	3
20	Phil Perkins	2
21	Abdel Damghi	1
=	Mark Fuller	1

Constructors' Championship standings

Pos	Constructor	Points
1	Draig-Ferrari	169
2	Red Archer-Renault	166
3	Nordsjoen-Mercedes	136
4	Midnight-Renault	84
5	TDR-Toyota	58
6	Woods-Mercedes	57
7	Synergetic-Ferrari	53
8	Williamson-Mercedes	47
9	Constant-Renault	16
10	Computrac-BMW	4
11	Nijo-Toyota	1
=	ST-BMW	1