07/05/2008
NEWS STORY
David Price Racing (DPR) heads to the Istanbul Circuit in Turkey this weekend for the second round of the 2008 GP2 Championship. Italian Giacomo Ricci is once again back for the team as the replacement for injured Michael Herck, and alongside him will be DPR regular, Brazilian Diego Nunes. This weekend DPR will be targeting the top ten, after the strong race pace in the first two races at the Catalunya Circuit in Spain has given the team optimism ahead of this weekend.
At the previous round in Barcelona, the pace of the DPR car was moving closer to the top ten, however the team struggled during the qualifying session which put them on the back foot leading into the races. Nunes, who was with the DPR team during their GP2 Asia campaign, completed two full race distances in Barcelona and improved his pace considerably throughout. Rookie driver Ricci, who had never previously competed in a GP2 race, nor driven the 2008 car, showed that he is a consistent and quick learner, who can work well with the engineers. The DPR team are now looking to draw upon their experience with the new car and work on their pace at Istanbul.
The Turkish Grand Prix debuted in 2005, the same year as the GP2 Series was formed, and is held at the newly built Istanbul Park Circuit. This modern masterpiece is another design of famous German circuit designer Hermann Tilke. The nature of the track provides drivers with plenty of overtaking opportunities and creates exciting racing for the spectators.
The circuit runs in an anti-clockwise direction and has been designed to follow the contours of the land, which dips and falls, creating a variation to many of the other flat, modern circuits. It takes influences from some of the world’s best race tracks and famous corners, such as the flat-out kink on a hill similar to Eau Rouge corner at Spa. Turn 8 is probably the most popular corner on the circuit, with a quadruple apex and a load of 5G (5 times the force of gravity) for 4 seconds.
Team Principal David Price commented ahead of the weekend, "Last time out in Barcelona we didn’t get a result which reflected our pace during the races. The car was performing well during the long runs, but starting in the back half of the field always makes it difficult to achieve top ten finishes.
"Our focus in Turkey is to work with the drivers to improve on their qualifying pace so we can be further up the grid ahead of the races, then we can position ourselves in the running for points. Both of our drivers did a solid job in their first race weekend, especially with the new car we have this year. We have only had one race weekend with it, so there’s still plenty of learning to do. Giacomo now has a little more experience of working with the team and knows what to expect from the car, which will give him more confidence and Diego will continue to work with the team and keep making progress. Our priority is to keep improving each time out and that’s an achievable goal at this point in the season."