UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > A1GP Round 5: Taupo

New Zealand take championship lead

After a break of a month for Christmas and New Year A1GP returned to action in Taupo, New Zealand for round five of the series. The event was put in doubt by a series of earthquakes to hit the region during the Christmas period, however the race will go ahead as planned.

Following the opening four rounds Team Switzerland lead with 79 points, Team France are second with 59 just one point ahead of New Zealand who had 58. Champions Team Germany are eighth with 37 points.

The rookie session was topped by Team Canada and driver Robert Wickens with a time if 1 17.070. Second was John Martin who is making his A1GP debut for Team Australia and Adam Carroll was third for Team Ireland. Brendon Hartley was the home driver in the rookie session finishing in fifth place.

Loic Duval was fastest in the first official session driving for Team France he was 0.254 seconds faster than Carroll with Neel Jani in third for championship leaders Team Switzerland. The home driver was Johnny Reid who was eighth 0.529 seconds off the pace.

On a hot dusty track the majority of the teams waited until the very last minutes of each fifteen minute segment to make their way out onto the track, but at the end of it all it is Reid who will start the sprint race from pole to the delight of the home crowd with Duval earning the feature race pole.

In segment one, it took nine minutes before the first cars, Team Indonesia with driver Satrio Hermanto and Team Lebanon with driver Chris Alajajian to become the first cars out on track.

Alajajian spun on his flying lap and although he did no damage to the car his lap was ruined meaning that Hermanto was the first to set a time, but it was quickly beaten by Tomas Enge driving the Czech Republic car.

Enge spun on his way back to the pits just missing the Lebanon car, quickly followed by Team China, Cheng Cong Fu at turn two as Adam Khan went fastest for Team Pakistan.

The top teams now choose to come out; Jani goes fastest but loses it to Christian Vietoris in the Team Germany car moments later. Reid then goes second with Carroll third to push Jani down to fourth.

The fastest driver of the segment was Duval, who as the last car to set a time went fastest and took provisional pole ahead of the second segment.

In segment two it took eight minutes before Martin was the first to leave this pits, he improved on his lap and put Team Australia sixth.

Other improvers were Team Portugal going sixth seconds after Australia with João Urbano driving this weekend but that become seventh when Robbie Kerr push Team Great Britain up into fourth place.

The top teams waited until the dying seconds of the session to set their times again, with Carroll first to go second, but lost it to Vietoris so after. In between them Duval improved slightly to stay on pole.

The last two men to run were Reid and Adrian Zaugg for Team South Africa. Reid was the first to finish his lap and delighted the packed New Zealand crowd by taking pole position in his home nation. Zaugg followed and set a lap faster than anything he has done this weekend to take second place.

On to the third segment to decide the grid for the feature race. It again was a long time before anybody came out on track. Duval was first out taking setting the fastest time.

Carroll was the next big name out on track going slightly slower than Duval but still fast enough to take second place. Kerr then went third but Jani pushed him to fourth.

Canada then shocked the field by going fastest but it was not to last, as Reid fresh from his sprint race pole surpassed him to take provisional pole followed by Zaugg and Vietoris who went second and third respectively pushing Canada down to fourth.

The fourth and final segment had to be seen to be believed. After eleven of the fifteen minutes no cars had left the pits.

Carroll was first out with less than four minutes to go and was followed by the other twenty-one nations.

Carroll jumped up to seventh on the gird but the real action and the battle for pole was still to come.

Jani was the first to take provisional pole beating Reid’s time from segment three. Duval was next across the line beating Janis time, followed by Vietoris who slotted in between the two nations.

One of the last across the line was Reid but he could not bear Duval and has to settle with fifth on the feature race grid because it is Duval who starts on pole giving Team France their first pole position in almost two years.

The sprit race saw a lights to flag victory for pole man Jonny Reid as he became on the second man to win on home soil in A1GP history.

Reid won a very uneventful race winning by just over three seconds from Vietoris who came up from fourth on the grid. Duval was third with Zaugg fourth dropping from their grid places after being passed by Vietoris.

Fifth was Jeroen Bleekemolen finishing where he started. Carroll passed Jonathan Summerton as they finished sixth and seventh.

The rest of the points were where the overtaking action was. Umberto was eighth after starting fourteenth he was followed all the way by Martin who started fifteenth and ended up ninth. Narain Karthikeyan was tenth for Team India after starting in twentieth place.

The fastest lap was set by Vietoris with a time of 1:15.740

The feature race was won by Vietoris as he took Team Germany’s first win of the season to get their title defence back on track.

The feature race had more drama in the first three laps than the entire sprint race did.

On the opening lap Karthikeyan ran off the road and got stuck in the gravel bringing out the safety car.

When the safety car came back in on lap three Jani took the lead from Duval and Robert Wickens for Team Canada passed Zaugg to take sixth place.

The safety car was back out on lap four when Edoardo Piscopo of Team Italy collided with Alajajian forcing both to retire.

Jani was judged to have jumped the start and was given a drive through penalty which sent him back down to the back of the pack as Kerr retired the Team Great Briton car.

On lap seven the safety car came back in and Reid immediately began to attack Team Brazil and driver Sergio Jimenez.

The first pit stops were made on lap ten with Vietoris and Duval being the first of the frontrunners to stop. The French team had a slow stop and it cost them the lead to Vietoris.

On lap twelve Reid pitted from the lead dropping him down to eighth place with Summerton leading but yet to pit.

Jani was having a very bad day and it got worse on lap sixteen. Badly out of position due to his drive through penalty he was behind Adam Khan of Team Pakistan. He botched the move and ended up damaging his own front wing forcing him to pit again.

On lap seventeen Summerton pitted from the lead handing it back to Vietoris.

There was loads of action on lap twenty two. Satrio Hermanto spun of the track for Team Indonesia and was followed by Martin and Bleekemolen suggesting that somebody had dropped fluid on to the track. Bleekemolen was the only one of the three able to resume as the safety came out for the third time.

When the safety car came in on lap twenty-seven Vietoris quickly opened up a 0.335 second advantage over Duval in second.

Reid was flying after a disappointing early part of the race. On lap twenty-eight he passed Zaugg to take sixth place and by lap thirty-one he was pressuring Bleekemolen for fifth.

Lap thirty-fife saw the second pit window open. Vietoris, Umberto and Reid were the first to pit. Vietoris kept his lead and Reid was able to pass Umberto who was given a drive through penalty for speeding in the pit lane.

Wickens and Duval were in on lap thirty-seven with Wickens getting the better stop and jumping the Frenchman to take second.

Cheng was running well for Team China in seventh but just four laps from home he spun off and into retirement.

Three cars were put under investigation in the closing stages. They were Vietoris, Carroll and Wickens. No reason was given for the investigation but any result changes will be reported by UpdateF1.

With the three safety car periods the race reached its time limit before the total number of laps were completed. At the end of the one hour plus a lap time Vietoris win quite easily from Wickens with Duval completing the podium.

Reid was fourth, Carroll fifth, Jimenez sixth, Zaugg seventh, Summerton eighth, Bleekemolen ninth with David Garza taking the last point for Team Mexico.

It wasn’t a total waste of a weekend for Jani and Team Switzerland as they took the fastest lap in the feature race with a time of 1:14.679 to score a single point.

After the fifth round there is a change at the top of the championship standings. Team New Zealand now lead with 82 points then it is Team France and Team Switzerland tied in second place with 80. Reigning champions Team Germany are now up to fourth following Vietoris’s win in the feature race.

The next race is in two weeks held in Sydney, Australia.

Written: Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:18:57