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New Zealand -Round 6

After the long five week Christmas break A1GP returned this weekend at Taupo in New Zealand for the first round of 2007. After the last round in Sentul, Indonesia on December 10th, Germany lead the standings with 48 points from Great Britain, on 36, and Mexico with 34.

The weekend opened with the Rookie and Developing Nation session, and as we often saw in 2006 fastest was Team France, driver Loic Duval not fazed by his promotion to race driver this weekend. Another debutant, former Jordan F1 driver Narain Karthikeyan, was second for Team India with Renger Van der Zande third on his first appearance for Team Netherlands; however he is not the nominated race driver. New Zealand driver Wade Cunningham set the eight fastest time.

Friday afternoon saw the Official Practise session for race drivers. Tomas Enge was fastest for Team Czech Republic; Kartikeyan was second again for India with Duval this time in third. New Zealand were again eighth with race driver Jonny Reid.

Saturday morning in Taupo witnessed the final practise session, and it was the home hero, Reid, who was fastest, setting a new track record in the process. He was just faster than series leader Nico Hulkenburg for Team Germany, with Richard Lyons an impressive third for Team Ireland.

After a close battle in practise expectations were high for a tight qualifying battle. In qualifying Hulkenburg set the fastest combined time to score his and Team Germany’s first ever A1GP pole position after a close battle with Reid and Duval.

Duval was on provisional pole after the opening two segments. However, when Hulkenburg beat the track record that Reid has set in the earlier practice session he was able to move ahead of the young Frenchman and claim pole.

Reid was always a threat to the front two but missed out on a place on the front row by just over 0.3 seconds. Despite the disappointment of missing the front row third place is the best grid slot for the home nation in A1GP history. After his practice pace few were expecting Jeroen Bleekemolen to be a contender at the front but he lined up fourth despite missing segment three due to a technical problem. Team Switzerland driver Sebastian Buemi was able to qualify an excellent fifth.

Despite disappointing pace in the first three segments Robbie Kerr jumped into sixth place thanks to his final run. Former F1 driver Karthikeyan set India’s best ever qualifying performance for tenth. The other former F1 driver, Alex Yoong for Team Malaysia, was eighth.

Team Germany took a comfortable victory in the sprint race from pole position without feeling any serious pressure from behind.

The start was aborted after Duval failed to take his correct position for the rolling start causing a second formation lap before the race got underway at the second attempt. At the first corner an accident occurred between Robbie Kerr of Team Great Britain and Alex Yoong of Team Malaysia. Kerr’s front wing was broken, but the damage to Yoong’s car was more serious and he retired.

At the second corner another collision happened when Team Lebanon's Alex Khateeb locked a wheel and went into the back of Team Singapore driver Christian Murchison. The safety car was deployed as the Singapore car was removed from the track.

When the safety car pulled in at the end of lap five, the leading five cars of Hulkenberg, Duval, Reid, Team Netherlands Jeroen Bleekemolen and Team Switzerland driver Sebastien Buemi immediately started pulling away from the pack and would finish in that order.

Further back Kerr’s car, still showing the damage from its earlier collision with Malaysia having chosen not to replace it as it would lose to much time, was losing places hand over fist. A1 Team South Africa were first to take advantage, overtaking on lap six. Team Italy’s Enrico Toccacelo was next to attempt a pass but Kerr held his line forcing Italy to pull back. Kerr eventually finished eighth with Toccacelo ninth. The final point went to Team Canada and James Hinchcliffe who finished in sixth place

The fastest lap was set by Hulkenberg, a time of 1:14.862 was the time to beat in the feature race to score a bonus point.

In the feature race Hulkenberg took another victory to do the double. Duval impressed holding second place despite constant pressure home hero Reid to third and the first ever podium for a home nation in A1GP.

Team South Africa driver Alan van der Merwe was running with the leaders until a drive through penalty for a jump start which he took at the end of lap four saw them drop down to 17th position.

Enge was having a close battle with Raphael Matos of Team Brazil. The pair approached turn 12 of lap seven side by side and both cars left the track and ran over the grass with Enge passing early in the next lap and leaving Matos with a broken front wing.

Hulkenburg was the first to pit as soon as the pit window opened on lap eight along with Bleekemolen, with Duval and Reid pitting a lap later. All four cars rejoined the race in the order they had been before the stop.

Buemi had lead after Germany, France, New Zealand and the Netherlands pitted. When he made his mandatory pit stop he was able to emerge ahead of Bleekemolen in fourth place and hold it for the rest of the race . Behind the top five, Hinchcliffe again finished sixth for Canada, Karthikeyan scored India’s first ever points in A1GP by finishing seventh, Toccacelo was eight for Italy, Team China finished ninth to score two points with Ho-Pin Tung as their driver and Ryan Hunter Reay scored the final point for Team USA.

The feature races fastest lap was 1:14.742 set by Hulkenberg to beat his own benchmark time from the sprint race, earning Team Germany a perfect weekend and scoring all the points on offer.

With a perfect weekend Team Germany maintain their advantage in the standings. They now have 65 points from Team France who jump up in to second place with 46. Team New Zealand are now third with 43. After disappointing races the teams that were second and third, Great Britain and Mexico how now dropped to fourth and fifth in the standings with Great Britain ahead 36 to Mexico’s 34.

Written: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 16:00:18