ANKARA, April 24 (Reuters) - Turkey's Istanbul Park circuit will return to the Formula One calendar from 2027 for at least five years, the Turkish presidency said on Friday, marking the culmination of Turkey's years-long campaign to return to the sport.
Details of the agreement were not immediately available, but President Tayyip Erdogan is set to officially announce the deal at an event on Friday afternoon in Istanbul, alongside F1's Chief Executive Officer Stefano Domenicali and Mohammed Ben Sulayem, president of the sport's governing body FIA.
The circuit on the Asian side of Istanbul is popular with drivers and fans but last hosted a race in 2021 as a stand-in during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also hosted grands prix between 2005 and 2011, as well as in the 2020 season when Lewis Hamilton won the race to clinch his seventh world championship, equalling Michael Schumacher's record.
While Turkey continued negotiations to return to the calendar after that event, momentum slowed from 2022 onwards partly due to the tens of millions of dollars needed to secure a deal that competitors, such as Qatar, were able to finance.
But in 2024, Can Bilim Egitim Kurumlari A.S., part-owned by F1 tyre provider Pirelli's Turkish branch chairman Lale Cander, earned rights to operate the Istanbul Park circuit for a 30-year period for some $117.8 million.
Under the deal, the new operators were tasked with bringing F1 back in a long-term deal by 2026, but the talks, carried out jointly with the Turkish Automobile Sports Federation (TOSFED), stalled.
In February, Domenicali confirmed that Istanbul Park was close to a return to the calendar in rotation with an existing race and that the number of races in the season would still be capped at 24.
(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu, Can Sezer and Alan Baldwin; Editing by Daren Butler and Kate Mayberry)
