In his latest update for Crash.net, rising 250GP star Chaz Davies reviews the Turkish Grand Prix at Istanbul - an event that ended in disappointment for the 19-year-old, but also saw "real progress" made…
After the Qatari Grand Prix I had two full weekends at home before we were back on a flight from Birmingham Airport on April 25th and on the way too Turkey. During my time at home I racked up some good mileage on my road bicycle, rode Minibikes, a bit of Supermoto and generally all the usual stuff. I also went to the BSB round at
Thruxton where it was good to catch up with some old friends I don’t get to see too often.
We left home bright and early on the 25th for our flight at 9am, first to Zurich with a one-hour wait there and then onwards to Istanbul. After arriving in Istanbul it was about 4pm local time so we just went for a wander around the hotel to see what was about… not much!
Our hotel was very nice, close to Istanbul centre but very expensive. For a glass of orange juice in the hotel lobby it was about £5! The traffic in Istanbul is unbelievable, worse than London for sure, there are absolutely no rules on the roads either. People cutting each other up left right and centre, using the hard shoulder on the motorway etc etc.
The only problem with staying in Istanbul centre is that you never know how long it is going to take to get to the circuit. It could be 45-minutes at best on a weekday or it could be two-tours, depending on how many Turks have imbedded themselves into the road barriers! Last year I counted nine crashes in thee days, but this year I only saw two slight bumps, which was surprising.
