From the race’s first turn to the end of the 16th lap, Nicolas Lapierre dominated the A1 Grand Prix of Nations Australia sprint race at Eastern Creek.
Lapierre had comfortably put his Team France car on pole position on Saturday but came under early threat during the weekend’s first race when Alvaro Parente of Portugal dove into the first turn.
The Frenchman used two of his four ‘power boost’ allocations to keep Parente at bay, and by turn three he had secured his position in the lead.
Parente’s early challenge would be the only he would mount as Lapierre walked to the chequered flag building an advantage of over half a second per lap.
Behind the leader, however, things didn’t run so smoothly. At turn one on lap one the field was already cut by one car when Tomas Enge in the Czech Republic entry ran into the gravel.
Jonny Reid (New Zealand) and Stephan Simpson (South Africa) also went off but managed to find their way back to the track, even if it was at the back of the pack.
Taking advantage of the carnage was Nelson Piquet (Brazil) and Michael Devaney (Ireland) who claimed positions off the start.
Both men punished a conservative run from Switzerland’s Neel Jani to move into third and fourth respectively.
Robbie Kerr (Great Britain) also got passed Jani but he himself was also passed by his arch-rival Devaney.
The safety car was out on lap one for the Czech Republic exit, and returned on lap three when there was another clash at turn two.
The incident occurred on the restart of the race when Salvador Duran attempted to put his Mexican entry ahead of Italy’s Enrico Toccacelo.
As the pair battled German opportunist Adrian Sutil attempted to take both cars but touched the grass, locked his wheels and when careering into the side of the Mexican car.
Once again as the race restarted – five laps down – there was another exit when South Africa’s Stephen Simpson came together with Lebanon’s Basil Shaaban into turn 12.
Simpson managed to ease the car – with broken right rear suspension – back to the pit lane meaning the safety car wasn’t required for a third time.
Two laps later Shaaban also pitted and retired due to the damage sustained in the incident.
Five calm laps followed with Piquet pushing Parente and Bryan Herta moving the Team USA entry up the order.
The race eventually ended on lap 16 – one lap short of the scheduled distance due to time constraints – however there was to be one more incident.
Braking into turn two on the final lap Mathius Lauda got all crossed up and ran into the rear of Hayanari Shimoda’s Japanese entry.
The double exit saw Herta claim another position to 16th and the number of retirements reach seven of a possible 24.
The teams are left with just 30 minutes before the pit lane re-opens for Sunday’s hour-long feature race meaning some of those cars with damage may not be able to make the grid.
Sprint race classification:
01. France 30:32.582
02. Portugal +8.699
03. Brazil +9.095
04. Ireland +12.485
05. Great Britain +17.473
06. Switzerland +19.984
07. Netherlands +24.556
08. Malaysia +26.836
09. Canada +27.886
10. Italy +29.820
11. Australia +30.426
12. Pakistan +38.112
13. Russia +39.018
14. New Zealand +40.064
15. USA +49.910
16. China +51.119
17. India +52.743
18. Japan + 1 LAP
19. Austria + 1 LAP
20. Lebanon + 8 LAPS
21. South Africa +11 LAPS
22. Mexico +16 LAPS
23. German +16 LAPS
24. Czech Republic
Written: Sun, 06 Nov 2005 03:23:12
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