The venue might be new, but it was the same old story today as McLaren dominated practice for the inaugural Turkish Grand Prix.
The Woking-based team have enjoyed a clear performance advantage over the last three months but have failed to turn that into a championship-winning position.
Their superiority was evident again when the Istanbul Otodrom hosted its first official Formula One sessions, even though Toyota test driver Ricardo Zonta stole the fastest time with his final lap.
The Brazilian has no need to conserve his engine, giving him the chance to set a best time of one minute 25.583 seconds and spoil McLaren's clean sweep at the top. McLaren tester Pedro de la Rosa, also free from engine concerns in his last session of the weekend, was second quickest, 0.613secs behind.
But the important times were those of race drivers and McLaren justified their high pre-race expectations.
Juan Pablo Montoya was third fastest with Kimi Raikkonen fourth. The Finn won last time out in Hungary to cut Fernando Alonso's advantage in the title race to 26 points.
Jenson Button showed encouraging pace to take fifth place for BAR-Honda with sixth-placed Red Bull tester Vitantonio Liuzzi demonstrating the advantages of running as a third driver, without reliability concerns.
World championship leader Alonso was a second slower than Montoya's McLaren in taking seventh, just ahead of Renault team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella. David Coulthard was 12th for Red Bull with world champion Michael Schumacher 13th.
