"Turks look for pit stop in race for modernity
Helena Smith
Sunday May 28, 2006
The Observer
On the outer edge of this great teeming city, beyond the Bosphorus, lies a race track that is all the rage. Here, fans of Formula One meet to indulge their passion. Few things have put Istanbul on the world map as much as the arrival of this auto event. For Turks, the race track is living proof of the remarkable recovery their economy has made since plunging into free-fall in 2001.
But, last week, this dazzling trophy of development began to symbolise something entirely different: the spectre of economic malaise. After a barrage of bad news, with Turkish financial markets witnessing a mass sell-off, and the lira weakening by a whopping 15 per cent, economists were again drawing comparisons to Formula One."
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