UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > A1GP Round 8: Mexico City

St. Patrick's Day comes early for Ireland

Round eight of A1GP came from Mexico City, making it a late evening race for the UK audiences on the same day as the Australian Grand Prix creating a 4am start and a very long day for that same European audience.

After the seventh round in Durban Team Switzerland lead the championship with 118 points. Team France are now second with 108 and after a bad weekend Team New Zealand fall to third place with 98 points.

The rookie session was topped by a brand new driver to the series. It was Davide Rigon of Team Italy who was fastest three tenths faster than a close battle for second that saw Niall Quinn of Team Ireland beat Wesleigh Orr of Team South Africa by just 0.003 seconds. David Martinez the Mexican rookie was fifth fastest

Oliver Jarvis was fastest in the official practise session, on the same track where he took the first A1GP win for Team Great Britain last year. Second was Neel Jani for the championship leaders; Team Switzerland. Third was Adam Carroll for Team Ireland. David Garza struggled to nineteenth for Team Mexico anticipating a bad weekend for the home nation.

Saturday morning’s practise session saw another very close battle to top the last leader board before qualifying. The fastest time went to Edoardo Piscopo showing that Team Italy have good pace this weekend. Second was Jonathan Cochet making his debut for Team France as Loic Duval has commitments in Japan. Third was Jani but the top three were separated by just 0.073 of a second. There were more problems of the home nation with Garza setting the slowest time, almost half a second off the pace of the car ahead.

Qualifying saw the two pole positions going to Adrian Zaugg of Team South Africa and after a steward’s inquiry Robert Wickens of Team Canada.

In segment one is was a long time before any of the main cars set the times with Reid the first to go. It was half way through the session when he took fastest time away from CongFu Cheng of Team China

Next was Team Netherlands and Jeroen Bleekemolen who could not beat Reid’s time and went second provisionally.

With just two minutes to go four nations were still out on track; Adam Carroll put the Team Ireland car second then Team Great Britain went fourth with Oliver Jarvis.

Just Jani and Zaugg to set times; Jani was first across the line but could only set the second fastest time, which became third seconds later as Zaugg inserted himself into second, but nobody could beat Reid who was on provisional pole after the first segment.

Garza had a spin at the new chicane on his fast lap and set the slowest time.

In segment two everybody left it late again to set their times. Satrio Hermanto went first for Team Indonesia but did not improve; Narain Karthikeyan put Team India up into fourteenth, a position that was taken by John Martin and Australia minutes later.

With only three times set there was only five minutes left on the clock. The disastrous qualifying for Cochet continued as his improvement only moved him into twelfth place

With one minute to go eleven nations still needed to set a time. The first of them was Garza, who got a clean lap and moved up into twentieth place.

Jonathan Summerton put the Team USA can in second place behind Reid who was unable to improve his time and it costly as Zaugg was able to snatch pole in the final seconds of the session.

The feature race qualifying started slowly again. Martin was first going fastest, he was then beaten by Karthikeyan who had his time deleted because he cut the new chicane.

Reid was out fairly early compared to his rivals and as expected went fastest, and was followed by Summerton who went second.

At the end of the session there was a sequence of derivers setting times very close together; Jarvis went third with Carroll fourth, then both Wickens and Jani both take turns at holding provisional pole position before Zaugg inserted himself third.

Into the last five minutes Cochet improves to eighth.

With just and a half minutes to go the remaining nations all came out on track at the same time.

Garza was in trouble at the chicane again, he crashed just after it bringing out the yellow flags.

It was while these yellow flags were out Wickens took pole position. Other drivers including Team Germany driver Michael Ammermuller, who went third, set their best time at about the same time as the yellow flags came out

Zaugg was the only driver to obey the yellow flags and aborted his lap once his saw Garza’s stranded car.

Nobody knew who had set their times under yellow flags and who had set theirs under green flag. It decision went to the stewards, who late on Saturday night decided that the positions set on track should stand giving Wickens pole position.

After the dramatic crash filled Australian Grand Prix the A1GP had a lot to live up to on Sunday, and they did their best.

Reid won a crash filled sprint race that saw a red flag, a restart and a safety car in only thirteen laps.

Even before the race began from the rolling start there was a multiple car accident. The first four cars were slow away and the rows behind all tripped over each other.

Jarvis hit the rear of Jani, Adam Khan of Team Pakistan went over the back of Ammermuller followed by Martin who also went into the back of the German causing Bruno Junqueira of Team Brazil off the road in avoidance.

With so much damage the race was stopped. Only Ammermuller was unable to take the start following two huge impacts from behind.

When the restart took place there was more action before turn one involving two cars from the earlier crash. Khan hit the back of Martin; both were out of the race.

At the front Zaugg was able to take the lead from Reid as Summerton drops down to sixth place.

On lap three Zaugg lost the lead back to Reid as the New Zealander passed around the outside in the big breaking zone of turn one. Zaugg ran straight on at the corner suffered a puncture and was out of the race.

Jarvis, Summerton, Carroll, Junqueira, Wickens, Ammermuller, and Khan were all placed under investigation after the crash at the original start.

By lap six Reid had pulled out a big lead but Filip Salaquarda spun the Team Czech Republic car at the chicane, forcing the safety car to be deployed. It came in on lap nine.

A three way battle was on for second, third and fourth. At the restart Jani had a look at Jarvis but he Briton blocked the move which in turn allowed Carroll to look down the inside of Jani

In the battle of the final point Junqueira and Cheng made contact the chicane, Cheng pitted for repairs Junqueira continued to finish tenth.

By lap eleven Reid had opened out a lead at the front and second place Jarvis had opened up space between himself and Jani. Behind Jani was coming under pressure from Carroll and Summerton over the last podium spot.

After his pit stop Cheng set the fastest lap on the final lap to gain the bonus point for Team China.

Reid took a comfortable fourth win of the season over Jarvis in second. The final podium place went to Jani who held off Carroll in fourth and Summerton in fifth. Team Portugal driver Filipe Albuquerque finished sixth ahead of Wickens seventh, Bleekemolen eighth, Alex Yoong ninth for Team Malaysia with Junqueira taking the final point.

In the feature race St. Patrick’s Day came early for Team Ireland as Carroll beat Jarvis to the flag for their first ever win. They become the fifteenth different nation to take victory since A1GP began.

Like the sprint race the start was aborted, this time from a standing start the light sequence failed and after a second formation lap the race got underway using a waved green flag rather than the lights.

At the start Wickens maintained his pole position from Jani. Towards the end of the lap Yoong cut the chicane and fell behind Filipe Albuquerque of Team Portugal.

On lap four Piscopo pulled into the pits and became the first retirement of the race with an engine problem.

Wickens was coming under increasing pressure from Jani and Jarvis as the front three open out an advantage over Carroll in fourth. On lap five the Canadian ran wide and lost some time allowing both Jani and Jarvis to catch right up to the back of him.

On lap seven the pressure paid off as Jani was able to pass Wickens and take the lead on the main straight.

The first mandatory pit sops began on lap ten with the majority of the leaders pitting as soon as possible. Reid had a bad pit stop and dropped down the order, Carroll on the other hand had a very good pit stop and was able to jump Wickens.

Hermanto was the last man to pit and so took over the lead once everybody else had pitted. It was the first time Team Indonesia had lead an A1GP race.

After the pit stops Jani lead from Carroll, Wickens and Jarvis. On lap seventeen Jarvis took third place from Wickens.

Wickens was now starting to struggle for pace, he had dropped away from the top three and into the clutches of Ammermuller. For the next seven laps Ammermuller would be all over the back of Wickens but could not find a way past. This was affecting Ammermuller’s own pace and on lap twenty-seven he lost fifth place to Summerton.

On lap twenty-seven Reid ran off the road and into the tyre wall at the chicane, he was able to get going again but he was down in twentieth place and the safety car was deployed.

On lap twenty-nine the safety car came in and Jani opened out a 1.1 second lead over Carroll in the space of just one lap.

Wickens was still struggling for pace and on lap thirty-two he was passed by Summerton and two laps later Ammermuller was right behind him. The two touched and Ammermuller needed to pit for a new nose.

When the second pit window opened Jani, Carroll, Jarvis and Summerton pitted straight away. Like in the first window Carroll had a great pit stop and he was able to win a drag race down the pit lane win Jani to take the lead.

After the second stops had been made; Carroll lead followed by Jani, Jarvis, Summerton and Bleekemolen who very quietly had worked his way up into fifth place.

Jani was given a drive through penalty for running down the wrong lane during the drag race with Carroll after the second pit stops. Once he had taken his penalty he fell down to eleventh place behind Khan.

With Jani out of the way Carroll had a big lead over Jarvis who was coming under intense pressure from Summerton for second place. With two laps to go Summerton was seen to shake his car as if he was running low of fuel, after this he dropped back.

Carroll able to run down the remaining few laps to take victory, Jarvis was second, Summerton third, Bleekemolen fourth, Wickens fifth, Zaugg sixth, Albuquerque seventh, Junqueira eighth, Karthikeyan ninth and Cheng tenth.

In the championship Team Switzerland still lead with 128 points, Team New Zealand are now up to second with 113 points and Team France drop to third with 108 points. The rest of the field have closed the gap considerably as none of the top three scored in the feature race.

Written: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:12:20