The Istanbul track won approval from F1 impresario Bernie Ecclestone himself, who said: “This is just what Formula 1 needs. It’s a circuit like Spa – one that will really sort the men from the boys.”

Trulli was happy with his qualifying effort, which saw him stop the clocks in 1m27.501s, a speed of 219.616kph around the 5.34km track.

“I think that’s the 12th time I have qualified in the top five out of 14 races this season and it was particularly satisfying because we were not especially convinced by the set-up we had in morning practice,” Trulli claimed. “I made many changes for qualifying and it is always a bit of a gamble when you do that, but everything worked out, so well done to the team. And me!”

Team mate Ralf Schumacher recorded 1m28.594s on his way to ninth place. His first and third sector times were on a par with his team mate, but Ralf’s lap was spoiled when he lost time with an off-track moment under braking for Turn 9. He was not the only one to make a mistake, with third- place man Fernando Alonso mentioning a stronger than expected tail wind that caught him out in Turn 12, the entry to which has a similar directional orientation.

“It’s certainly a good circuit but maybe I was just trying a bit too hard,” Schumacher said. “I lost almost exactly a second in Turn 9 but, fortunately, the mid grid times are not so close here and I still managed to qualify in the top 10. We are still well placed to have a decent race.” Turkey is the eighth time this season that Panasonic Toyota Racing has managed to qualify both TF105s in the top 10.

Championship challenger Kimi Raikkonen (1m26.797s) claimed his fifth pole position of the season, ahead of the Mild Seven Renault F1 Team drivers, Giancarlo Fisichella (1m27.039s) and Fernando Alonso (1m27.050s). Juan Pablo Montoya (1m27.352s) was fifth in the second McLaren and, behind Trulli, BMW Williams F1 Team driver Nick Heidfeld (1m27.929s) completed the top six.

Chief race engineer Dieter Gass explained: “The temperatures were higher during qualifying and I think that was the reason that our performance level was more convincing than it had been in morning practice. Ralf was a little bit unfortunate in Turn 9 and, without that, I have no doubt that we could have made a clean sweep of the third row. The first corner is always interesting at a new circuit, when none of the drivers have previous experience to call upon, but the positive thing is that both our guys are on the clean side of the grid. Let’s hope that will count for something!”