The eleventh round of the Superbike World Championship will take place over the weekend of September 13th- 14th – 15th at the Intercity Istanbul Park in Turkey. The Istanbul Racing Circuit is a motor sports race track in Akfirat village east of Istanbul. It was inaugurated on 21th August 2005 and is adjacent to the Sabiha Gökçen International Airport, surrounded by forests and fields. The Istanbul Park racing circuit was one of only five circuits running anticlockwise in the Formula One Championship. The circuit is 5.338 km long and covers over 2,215 million square meters. The main grandstand has a seating capacity of 25,000 spectators. In addition, natural viewing points and temporary stands can provide a total capacity of over 155,000. The circuit and its facilities were designed by the well-known racetrack architect Hermann Tilke.

Circuit characteristics:
Circuit length: 5.338 km
Pole position: left
Corners: 14

Two weeks after the Nurburgring races, team Althea Racing moves on to Turkey for the eleventh round of the World Superbike championship. This will be a new event for the Superbikes and also for the majority of the riders, who will have the chance to race on the beautiful Istanbul track for the first time. The weekend’s programme has been modified to allow the riders to learn the layout and gain confidence on track. Friday’s practice has therefore been doubled in length from 45 to 90 minutes while Sunday’s races will each take place an hour ahead of the usual schedule. With no references and no data it won’t be easy for the riders and technicians to identify the right setting for the Turkish track but team Althea knows its Aprilia RSV4 very well by now and will surely understand how to adapt the bike to a track that many consider to be both spectacular and technical.

Davide Giugliano: “The Istanbul track will be a new experience for many of the Superbike riders, myself included. It will be important to work well with my team in order to quickly identify the best set-up for my RSV4. I’ve seen many film clips of the Turkish track and I’m trying to memorize the layout. I can’t wait for Friday when I can finally get out on track. The results at Nurburgring were fairly positive and we’ll try to continue to work in that same direction so as to do even better.”