UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > A1GP: Round 6

Jani breaks all-time wins record

Round six of the A1GP Championship for 2008/2009 was hosted by the brand new Algarve circuit in Portugal.

Going in to the event, Team Switzerland leads the standings, with a three point margin over Team Ireland by a score of seventy-three to seventy respectively. This weekend hosts Team Portugal are third with sixty-four points and Team Netherlands fourth with fifty-six.

The big news heading into this weekend was the fact that Team Italy has signed former Scuderia Toro Rosso and current Force India Formula One test driver – Vitantonio Liuzzi to drive their car.

The first practise session was topped by Robert Doornbos driving for Team Netherlands. He was less than a tenth of a second faster than Earl Bamber in the Team New Zealand car with Clivio Piccione in the Team Monaco car the only other driver in half a second of Doornbos’s pace. Liuzzi was fourth on his debut.

Doornbos stayed on top for the second session, extending his advantage to a huge 0.724 seconds from Adam Carroll in the Team Ireland car, who was the only other driver within a second of the fastest time. Neel Jani was third for Team Switzerland just over a second behind with Liuzzi in fifth 1.547 seconds of the pace.

Liuzzi jumped to the top of the times during qualifying for the sprint race. He was one of only a handful of drivers to use his one and only qualifying shot of powerboost, and used it to full affect setting a time 0.471 seconds faster than weekend pace-setter Doornbos, who joins him on the front row. Lining up behind was Carroll and Daniel Morad, another of the drivers to use powerboost on the Team Lebanon car.

Jani had a disastrous session he failed to set a time in the first segment after a problem and then a reoccurrence forced him to grind to a halt as soon as he left the pits in the second segment.

Doornbos used his shot of powerboost in qualifying for the feature race, and power boosted him self back to the top with pole position. Carroll will join him on the front row with Jani and Team South Africa driver Adrian Zaugg on row two. Liuzzi paid the price for using his powerboost in the sprint race sessions and while his rivals used them in the feature race session he fell to tenth place,

The sprint race was won by Doornbos, after he got the best of a rolling start and passed Liuzzi at the first corner.

On the opening lap Bamber spun at turn three and André Lotterer in the Team Germany car collided with Morad forcing Lotterer into retirement and the first appearance of the weekend of the safety car.

After starting at the back of the grid, Jani was already up to eleventh when the safety car came in at the end of the third lap.

On lap five the pit stops began. Doornbos was first in on lap five and resumed in the lead. On the next lap Felipe Guimaes brought the Team Brazil car in but he knocked a tyre out of the hands of a Team China mechanic and sent it flying down the pit lane

During the pit stop window, Carroll and Filipe Albuquerque of Team Portugal were both able to pass Liuzzi after the Italians had a slow pit stop.

Jani had taken the lead by staying out longer than anybody else, but when he pitted on lap nine he dropped to eighth place.

However, the pit lane closed at the end of lap eight so Jani pitted outside the window. For this he was given a stop and go penalty. This was announced on lap twelve.

At the first corner of lap thirteen Zaugg and John Martin of Team Australia collided. The crash caused the red flag to be produced, giving Jani no time to take his penalty.

Before the red flag Doornbos was 3.2 seconds clear of Carroll in second place with Albuquerque completing the podium in third.

Liuzzi was fourth, Piccione fifth, Narain Karthikeyan was sixth for Team India, Guimaes was seventh, Jani crossed the line in eighth, with Fairuz Fauzy ninth for Team Malaysia, and Salvador Duran scoring the last point for Team Mexico.

Because Jani did not take his stop and go penalty during the race, the time was added to his race time, dropping him to fifteenth place and promoting Martin into tenth place.

Jani took victory in an eventful feature race, which saw two retirements before the race even began, and many penalties and safety car incidents.

The two unlucky drivers to fail to make the start were Guimaraes after the Team Brazil mechanics were unable to repair the car after his sprit race accident, and the pole man Doornbos.

The retirement of Doornbos left Carroll alone on the front row, and got a great start and took a early lead from Jani in second.

Unfortunately, his start was too good and after opening out a 1.8 second advantage he was called in for a drive-through penalty.

On lap eight Carroll took his penalty while at the same time Albuquerque and Zaugg were the first two cars to stop.

Carroll was in again on lap eleven this time to make his pit stop, and on the same lap race leader Jani also made the first of his two mandatory pit stops. Also in was Bamber, the Team New Zealand crew did a great job and he was able to jump past Albuquerque.

The safety car was required for the first time in the feature race when Zaugg and Bamber made contact at turn three on the fifteenth time around.

Duran timed his pit stop to perfection getting in just before the safety car was called, as a result he was able to resume in fifth place, behind Jani, Albuquerque, Liuzzi and Marco Andretti of Team USA, when the race resumed.

At the restart home hero, Albuquerque went right round the outside of Jani to give the home nation the lead.

The racing did not last long as just a lap later the safety car was again needed. This time if was for a three car incident involving Piccione, Liuzzi and Andretti caused by Andretti turning in on Liuzzi as he tried to pass. Piccione was the innocent victim following the scrap.

Lap twenty-one saw racing resume for the second time, and in similar circumstances to the first restart the battle for the lead resumed. This time it was Jani hounding Albuquerque but the Portuguese driver held firm and Jani was forced to give up his passing attempt.

After laps later it was time for the second round of pit stops. On lap twenty-seven Albuquerque and Carroll were in together, Carroll was still recovering from his earlier drive through penalty but after some slick work from the Team Ireland mechanics he left right on the tail of the second placed Team Portugal car.

A lap later when Jani pitted, he only just kept the lead ahead of the chasing pack.

Carroll’s impressive comeback drive was effectively ruined when they were given another drive through penalty – this time for overtaking behind the safety car. However in a strange turn of fate A1GP officials decided that they would not have to serve the penalty during the race but it would be looked at afterwards.

In the closing laps Jani and Carroll were nose to tail and had pulled out a large gap back to Albuquerque in third, but Jani was able to hold on and give Team Switzerland another win, and write himself into the A1GP record books as the driver who has won the most races in A1GP history, taking the record previously held by former Team Germany driver Nico Hulkenberg – who is now the Williams Formula One Test Driver.

Carroll took second on the road but when the incident was discussed it was decided that he should have twenty-five seconds added to his race time, dropping him to fifth place.

That promotes Albuquerque into second place, with Fauzy now taking the final podium place.

Duran finishes fourth, to score more points for the previously pointless Team Mexico, Carroll dropped to fifth, Team France finished sixth with driver Nicolas Prost, Team Great Britain came home seventh with Dan Clark driving, Ho-Pin Tung was eighth for Team China, Lotterer ninth, and Zahir Ali in tenth and the final finisher for Team Indonesia.

In the championship, Team Irelands penalty helps Team Switzerland open out a four point lead over them, with the Swiss now on eighty-eight with the Irish on eighty-four, but very close behind are Team Portugal with eight-two in third. Team New Zealand are fourth with sixty-six – so with just two rounds to go it is looking like a three horse race.

Written: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:47:16