Apr
16
Matthew Wilson: Hello from cloudy Istanbul!
Hello from cloudy Istanbul!
It’s 8:30 on Thursday night and I’m writing this blog from a boat on the Bosphorus Strait on the way back to Rally HQ from tonight’s ceremonial start.
Scott and I arrived in Turkey on Sunday night and it’s been a busy few days. Most of Monday was spent down in the service park getting a feel for the area and new location. We’ve had a lot of early starts since we’ve been here, getting up at 5am on Tuesday and Wednesday morning to do recces where we’ve found the stages to be really fast and wide. The new location for this year’s rally in Turkey has meant there’s been extra pressure – we’ve had to make new pace notes and needed to concentrate harder than usual making a lot of long days.
Unfortunately we’ve not seen much Turkish sun since we’ve been here and it’s been mostly cloudy and cold during the day – much like home in Cumbria! It’s a nice change from Jordan though where it was over 30 degrees and made the temperatures inside the cars unbearably hot. I think we’re all quite happy that Rally Jordan is over now as it was a really brutal round, even in the press conference today Kimi Raikonnen, Danni Sordo and myself all agreed how tough Jordan is in the championship.
This morning we had shakedown and it went pretty well. Saturday looks as if it’s going to be a really tough day though – the challenge of changing from tarmac to gravel means I’ll have to alter my driving techniques and react more quickly.
This afternoon has been something totally different as all the crews got on a boat with their cars to take us to the ceremonial start. The boat trip took about an hour from Rally HQ in Pendik to where the ceremonial start was taking place in Sultanahmet Square and when we arrived there was a huge buzz from thousands of Turkish fans. Some really important Turkish ministers turned up tonight too, it’s great to see how much support we have out here.
Istanbul is a really special city as it straddles two continents – it was quite cool to be in Asia this morning, travel to Europe for the ceremonial start this afternoon and now I’m heading back to Asia again! We’ve just had a really nice dinner onboard the ferry and we’ve just seen some belly dancing so it’s been an interesting day.
I’ve got a bit more work to do tonight before I head to bed to get a good night sleep in preparation for the first stage at 9am. I’m keen to get some more points for the team whilst we’re out here and I’m just really looking forward to getting started now.
MW