This summer, drivers of Formula 1 cars fought, for the first time ever, for points in Turkey. The new circuit known as „Istanbul Otodrom“ is located outside the metropolis on the Bosporus. VÖGELE pavers had been on the scene to build a race track of high stability providing optimum grip.

Last year the Formula 1 series of racing, the most famous in the world, made its debut in Bahrain and China. This year, the F 1 Turkish Grand Prix received its official world première. The greater part of the brand-new circuit winds through medium-fast bends, among them 7 left-handers and 6 right-handers. Given a track width of 14m to 28m, the circuit allows a reasonable amount of overtaking. A feature of the circuit, striking indeed, are large differences in altitude between individual sections, as the track runs through hilly terrain dropping and climbing as many as 43 metres. The outstanding particularity, however, is the circuit’s counter-clockwise direction, a challenge pilots have to contend with. All in all, the Istanbul Otodrom presents a layout that gives Formula 1 fans the thrill they expect.

The Istanbul circuit, like the majority of new Formula 1 race tracks built in recent times, has been designed by architect Hermann Tilke from Aachen, Germany, who also was responsible for reconstruction of the German Nürburgring and Hockenheimring circuits, to cite just a few examples. The grandstands appear in the oriental style, typical of the country, and accomodate 155,000 spectators.

Large-scale job site under pressure of time

Construction work at and around the new Istanbul Otodrom continued into the month of July 2005. A tough job, indeed, for main contractor Evren Mühendislik ve Insaat AS and the road building company Ayhanlar Yol Asfaltlama San. ve Tic. A.S. On the race track with a length of 5,378km, Formula 1 cars reach maximum speeds of 320 km/h. Thus, the track must withstand enormous forces and provide the optimum grip, a great challenge posed to paving teams and building materials during construction. And as for that high speeds utmost surface accuracy is required, the project allowed not much of a margin for error in evenness. A tolerance of no more than +/- 5mm was permitted for the binder course and only +/- 2mm for the wearing course.

SUPER pavers provided a super grip

Three VÖGELE pavers, in fact two SUPER 1900 with AB 600 TV screeds and one SUPER 1800 with an AB 575 TV screed took up this challenge. The two SUPER 1900 worked in constant widths of 7.5m, the SUPER 1800 in widths between 4m and 5.75m. Racing track, supply roads or areas for cars going off the line are largely different in width. Run-off areas, for instance, are up to 80m wide, the racing track proper varies between 14m and 28m and supply and service roads are from 5m to 16m wide. VÖGELE pavers moved onto the site at an early stage to build the sub-base using aggregate without bitumen 20cm to 30cm thick, which was placed as a first layer to level out irregularities in the ground. Next was water-bound base 15cm to 25cm thick, followed by a 10cm asphalt base and a 6cm binder course. The 4cm wearing course on top was not placed before all building work inside the circuit had been completed in order to avoid any risk of construction site vehicles moving on the track’s freshly paved surfacing.

430,000 tonnes of special mix

All layers contained 19 % of dolomitic lime dust and 16 % of a modified material, a mix of Grovak based sandstone dust and the chemical additive NAF 501. All in all, the pavers laid 430,000 tonnes of materials, 180,000 tonnes out of them were paved hot. As to the asphalt mix, the specifications called for paving in echelon „hot to hot“ and temperatures were to be maintained within narrow limits. For perfect grade and slope control, VÖGELE NIVELTRONIC was installed on the pavers.

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