News briefs from Turkey: Thursday

(GMM) According to the odd taxi driver in Istanbul, this weekend's Turkish grand prix could be a wet one. For now, however, the official forecasts are for some showers on Friday, but otherwise a cool and dry Saturday and Sunday.

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BMW-Sauber driver Nick Heidfeld is suffering from an irritating bout of hay-fever.

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F1 stewards at the Otodrom venue confirmed that, because of the downfall of Super Aguri and the reduction of the field to just 20 runners, only five drivers will drop out at the end of the 'Q1' and 'Q2' segments in qualifying. Previously, six of the 22 cars dropped out in each of the sessions, leaving the ten qualifiers in the final top-ten runout.