UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > A1GP: Round 7

Team Ireland win title

The events at Brands Hatch were due to be round seven out of eight of the A1GP championship of 2008/2009, however with Swine Flu causing problems across the world the final event in Mexico City on May 24 was cancelled, meaning that this was the final round.

Entering what is now the last weekend in the championship, Team Switzerland leads the championship by four points over Team Ireland with Team Portugal in third two points behind. They have eighty-eight, eighty-four and eight-two points respectively.

The weekend began with the first practice session with Jeroen Bleekemolen driving for Team Netherlands setting the fastest time. Championship contenders Team Ireland were second with Adam Carroll and Team India third with Narain Karthikeyan. Team Irelands title rivals were sixth and tenth with Filipe Albuquerque of Team Portugal ahead of Team Switzerland drivers Neel Jani.

Bleekemolen also topped the second session, but this time second placed Satrio Hermanto of Team Indonesia was much closer to the Dutchmanâ€™s pace. A1GP debutant JR Hildebrand was third for Team USA â€“ and I for one was really looking forward to seeing how the twenty one year old performs.

The title contenders were all together in the final standings with Jani sixth, Albuquerque seventh and Carroll eighth.

In qualifying for the sprint race Carroll struck first blood over his rivals by claming pole position. He is joined in the front row by Salvador Duran for Team Mexico who returned to the series last time out and scored his counties first points of the season. Starting behind will be Bleekemolen in third and the impressive Hildebrand in fourth.

Albuquerque is fifth to give himself a chance of maintaining contact with Team Ireland and Jani has work to do starting down in eighth. With the championship being so close no team can become champions in the Sprint Race but Carroll can put one hand on the title.

One hand was firmly placed on the title in Feature Race qualifying as Carroll took pole position again. This time Clivio Piccione of Team Monaco will join him on the front row, Bleekemolen is again third with Jani fourth. Albuquerque starts down in ninth but with a long race and two pit stops he was in no way out of the title hunt.

Adam Carroll had that hand firmly on the trophy and was reaching out with his second hand after taking a win in the sprint race, with Albuquerque and Jani having bad races.

At the start of the race Duran grabbed the lead from Carroll after he got away from the line slowly, while at the same corner Albuquerque took third, with Jani not making any progress and remaining eighth.

On lap five the top two of Duran and Carroll pitted together, both stops were good but the Team Ireland crew were slightly faster gifting the lead back to Carroll, with Karthikeyan also jumping ahead of Duran.

After seven laps Albuquerque and Jani had both made their pit stops and with Carroll leading Albuquerque was fourth behind Duran with Jani down in eighth watching the championship slowly slip away.

Albuquerque soon had his title hopes dented as he lost his fourth place to Hildebrand.

With the lead Carroll had his victory over Karthikeyan was a formality, and his victory gap eventually settled at seven seconds, with Duran holding on for third over a charging Hildebrand.

Albuquerque was fifth, Bleekemolen sixth, John Martin of Team Australia seventh, Jani struggling down in eighth, Nicolas Prost of Team France was ninth, with Vitantonio Liuzzi completing the top ten for Team Italy.

When Carroll took another win in the feature race, it sealed the title victory for Team Ireland, and made them the first team this season to win both races in a single weekend.

Carroll also set the fastest lap in the sprint race, to give him an extra point.

But to take the title he had to contend with an aborted start, a safety car period, two pit stops and a slower Hildebrand in the Team USA carâ€¦twice.

When the cars formed up on the grid the fifty lap race was all set to go, but the start was aborted when the Team South Africa car driven by Alan Van Der Merwe stalled, meaning another formation lap.

Second time round the start went ahead for what was now a forty nine lap race. But it was not going for long before the safety car was deployed. Team Chinas car driven by Cheng Cong Fu spun after contact from Hildebrand and Karthikeyan was the innocent victim as he was taken out by the spinning car.

Hildebrand pitted for a new nose, but waited until the safety car was on its way back into the pits which put him a long way behind everybody else.

When the first of two pit windows opened Carroll and Albuquerque came in together, with Carroll staying ahead.

Switzerland was in third place after the pit stops needing something to happen to Carroll to have any hope of retaining the title. His plight was soon to get worse as he suffered from a crack exhaust which reduced the amount of power available to him, however he was able to continue.

On lap twenty seven Carroll caught Hildebrand, who was a lap down following his pit stop for a new nose. With the aerodynamics of the current A1GP car he could not get close enough to the back of the Team USA car to take the benefit of the blue flags.

A lap later Aaron Lim in the Team Malaysia car crashed and became beached in the gravel. Fearing a safety car would be again deployed Carroll and several other of his front running rivals dived to the pits for their second stop.

Bleekemolen was running second before the pit stops and chose to make his a lap after Carroll, it was a quicker stop but it was not enough to get ahead of Carroll.

So after the second round of pit stops Carroll lead, Jani was third and Albuquerque was stuck down in fifth being held up by Clivio Piccione driving for Team Monaco.

In the closing laps Carroll again caught Hildebrand, This time he was able to get closer and the American backed off and let the new champion pass.

It was a case of ticking off the laps one by one for Carroll until he saw the chequered flag to give him victory in the feature race at Brand Hatch, but also the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport Championship of 2008 â€“ 2009.

Bleekemolen was second, Jani third to become the gallant runner up in the championship, Piccione fourth, with a frustrated Albuquerque in fifth, Duran sixth, Dan Clark seventh for Team Great Britain, Martin eighth, Liuzzi ninth and Prost completing the final top ten of the year.

So, Team Ireland are the champions, ending the year with 112 points, pushing former champions Team Switzerland down into second place with ninety five points and Team Portugal third with ninety two.

Team Netherlands ended up fourth with seventy five points, along way behind the top three but along way ahead of Team France who finish fifth with forty seven.

Written: Mon, 04 May 2009 07:53:05