2008-11-28T02:34:04Zhttp://gpreporters.com/a1gp/reports.php?a=vtopic&t=79No luck needed for the Irish in Malaysiakerrmanningjarvis2008-11-28T02:34:04Z2008-11-28T02:34:04Z[b]The third stop on the ten-round A1GP world tour was Malaysia, or more specifically, Sepang International Circuit, for the fourth season in a row. Seasons 1-3, with the old car, provided action, thrills and spills. So, would the new Powered by Ferrari cars do so as well?[/b]
That was the question on my mind as I awoke at 5:30am on Sunday morning to watch the racing, after two days of practice and qualifying building up to race day. After France and Great Britain looked very quick on Friday, topping the timesheets between them in all 3 sessions, qualifying took on a very different look. A1GP have implemented a new rule, supposedly to make the races more exciting (although I think it’s a fake way of generating excitement which is not needed), whereby each team can use powerboost for 1 full lap in qualifying, out of the 4 flying laps. Mexico proved how quick it could be in the morning, when David Garza rose from lower midfield obscurity to the top of the timesheets after testing the system out with new tyres.
When qualy came around, the grid for the sprint race saw Neel Jani, the “Sepangmeister”, take pole (with boost) ahead of Duval and Bamber (also using boost). Italy and Mexico used their boost to take top-10 grid positions. As for feature qualifying, Carroll and Watts were 1-2 on the grid, with Daniel Morad using his boost to perfection to take 3rd. Duval, Bamber and Jani were way down (9th, 15th and 16th).
The start of the sprint race was crazy, Marco Andretti unable to avoid Karthikeyan at the rolling start and smashing into the back of the Indian machine. Then Felipe Guimaraes (a personal favourite of mine) hit Andretti, with both the USA and Brazil cars airborne for a second or two. And “Big Phil” summed it up quite well when he described his weekend as “shit”.
On the restart, Watts couldn’t get away, an ECU failure robbing him of likely points for GBR (boo!). It was a simple win for the Swiss, while New Zealand forcefully passed France in the pits but was forced to give the place back (although I thought it was a little harsh). Further behind, good old Zauggi continued the tradition of Red Bull drivers causing havoc at Sepang by clobbering Fairuz Fauzy but, for reasons unknown, wasn’t penalised despite the Hammer being penalised for the same thing a year ago. Malaysia had to limp back to the pits with a puncture which was bad for fans of the yellow car.
The feature race began with a bang, Carroll getting away perfectly from pole and Morad following him, Watts having had a very poor start. Behind, the Swiss car spun and stalled mid-way around the first lap, while the Netherlands and India were involved in a seemingly innocuous collision. However, the Dutch car was forced to serve a puzzling drive through penalty.
Filipe Albuquerque passed Morad on the first lap and, a few laps in, both Morad and Watts ran wide while battling. As he rejoined, Watts became sandwiched between Guimaraes and Duval, and couldn’t avoid hitting the back of Duval’s car, breaking his front wing and puncturing Duval’s tyre. Both Watts and Duval rejoined but, unfortunately, Watts had to retire later on with more tech problems. No points for GBR, despite looking very quick – a complete contrast to the excellent Chengdu weekend.
What else happened in the race? Well, Carroll put in an absolutely dominant drive, beating Albuquerque by 15+ seconds. Young Marco managed to take the USA car onto the podium in 3rd, and looked exhausted afterwards, while Australia took an excellent 4th thanks to the “Pit-Stop Kings” putting in two excellent stops. Zaugg was 5th, followed by Bamber and Big Phil G. Bleekemolen finished 8th after the drive through, China were 9th with Tung and Fauzy finished 10th, although he could have been on the podium. While running 3rd earlier on, he entered the pits after hearing a command to pit on his radio. Turns out it was another team’s radio frequency, and when he came in to pit, he was sent on his way again. He passed Piscopo with a brainy move to get into the points, and 10th was a good return after an extra pit-stop, although the locals would have loved the yellow car in the top 3.
So, overall, another exciting race weekend from the A1 boys, with overtaking clearly possible in the new Ferrari-powered machine and position changes going on throughout the field (except at the front, where Jani and Carroll dominated). The only bad thing?
We have to wait 9 weeks until the next race...
[b]By KMJ[/b]http://gpreporters.com/a1gp/reports.php?a=vtopic&t=78Thumbs up to Chengdu after A1's first visitkerrmanningjarvis2008-11-11T04:44:20Z2008-11-10T09:03:25ZBrilliant commentary on the weekend KMJ [up]
I agree about looking forward to Sepang, Malaysia, we should see what this 'powered by Ferrari' car has to offer in true racing on a proper race circuit.http://gpreporters.com/a1gp/reports.php?a=vtopic&t=77Zandvoort musingskerrmanningjarvis2008-10-17T11:09:52Z2008-10-17T11:09:52ZWhat did I expect heading in to Zandvoort? To be honest, I had no idea what would happen. Brand new cars, some of them having not even run yet, and heavy rain forecast. I was both nervous and excited at the same time. As I begun to watch the Circuit Park Zandvoort racecam on Saturday morning, that nervousness turned into joy. The new cars looked awesome, and were putting in superb laptimes. I was still a bit worried about the teams who hadn’t left the garages yet though…
Eventually throughout Saturday, all cars except Brazil and China made an appearance out on track, and the Netherlands put in a blistering lap time to take pole. I was hoping for an Adam Carroll pole, but I thought 3rd on the grid wasn’t too bad. How wrong I was…
After the extra practice session on Sunday morning, where Brazil and China ran, I was happy to know we would have a 17-car grid for the sprint race. I expected a race where the Netherlands would simply drive away from the field.
But at the start of the sprint, Earl Bamber made an excellent start and was right on Bleekemolen’s tail throughout the first few laps. Behind, Adam Carroll, aggressive driver that he is, put on waaaaaaaayyyyyyy too much power through Arie Luyendijk Bocht, spun, and was hit by an unfortunate Clivio Piccione in the Monaco car.
In the wet, I thought Black Beauty looked a lot quicker than the Dutch car, and I was right – eventually Bleekemolen was forced into an error, Bamber went past and drove away. Bleekemolen then slipped backwards, passed also by Malaysia’s Fairuz Fauzy and France’s Loic Duval, putting in a super drive after only having driven the car for the first time on Saturday afternoon!
18-year-old Bamber didn’t hold onto that lead for long though, as the yellow and black machine of Fauzy put in a hard but fair pass to take the lead, to the delight of the A1 Team Malaysia mechanics! From there, Fauzy, Bamber and Duval held onto their places to the end in vile conditions. It was a shame that, after a scintillating drive from the back of the grid, Ho-Pin Tung spun out of 6th place and hit the pit-wall, bringing out the red flag. Felipe Guimaraes also crashed on that lap, as it was like driving in a river by then!
The feature promised to be a cracker, with the track getting wetter and wetter as the rain came down. It started behind the safety car, as the sprint had, and when the safety car came in the cars begun to spread out, as visibility was almost nil due to severe amounts of spray. USA’s Charlie Kimball spun early on, but re-joined, and a lap later Duval passed Bamber to put France up into 2nd! A lap later it was the orange Dutch car also passing Black Beauty, sending the very wet crowd into a frenzy as he moved up to 3rd!
Ho-Pin Tung’s chances of another charge through the field were ended when he spun into the gravel and re-joined, only to be hit with a drive-through for overtaking under yellows, and soon after the emerald green Irish car spun into the gravel and into retirement. Not a good weekend for Adam Carroll and the team – 0 points when some of their championship rivals were not present.
Heartbreak followed for World Cup champions Switzerland when they had to retire with gearbox problems, and Neel Jani was then accosted by the new female interviewer – poor Neel! ;)
Italy and South Africa then collided, and both went out of the race. I initially assumed it was Zaugg’s fault – he is a bit of a hothead – but it turned out to be Onidi’s. Sorry Zauggi! ;)
Then it was pit-stop time – both the Malaysian and Dutch teams struggled with wheel nuts, whereas the French team had a good stop which allowed Duval to take the lead! For the Netherlands, though, that wasn’t the end of the drama – Bleekemolen returned to the pits a few laps later, gesticulating like a madman about something, but was sent out again. An interview with Jan Lammers revealed that there was a steering wheel problem, which could pop up later in the race…
Next we had heavy crashes for Indonesia and Portugal, and a spin for Korea, bringing out the safety car, and when it came back in Lebanon, who had never scored an A1 point before, were an amazing 4th!
It didn’t last long – Daniel Morad’s aggression getting the better of him as he spun, gifting the position to Australia. But the pit window then opened for a 2nd time, and Lebanon managed to get ahead of Australia after a slow stop from the Aussie crew! France, Malaysia and New Zealand, 1st, 2nd and 3rd at this stage, all maintained their positions after their pitstops, and I didn’t think anything else eventful was going to happen.
But first Charlie Kimball spun into the gravel and out, a lap or two after setting a fastest lap that wasn’t beaten, and then we had a huge crash when Daniel Morad spun on the start finish straight and hit the lapped Chinese car of Ho-Pin Tung – both cars skidded into the Tarzan gravel trap and the Lebanese car hit the tyre barrier hard. Both drivers were OK, luckily, but the safety car was brought out.
The race ended under the safety car, as the time was up, and we were all left to reflect on a truly thrilling race where Lebanon scored their first ever A1GP points, classified 8th despite crashing out, and newcomers Monaco (6th) and Korea (7th) also scored points. Bleekemolen in the Dutch car finished 5th in the end, with that gearbox problem recurring and making the car hard to drive.
Overall, despite a reduced grid, the opening round of season 4 had everything we have come to expect from A1GP – drama, unpredictability and tension. And I loved every minute of it.
Here’s hoping for a full grid of cars in Chengdu next month, where “my team”, Great Britain, enter the championship picture. I hope.
KMJhttp://gpreporters.com/a1gp/reports.php?a=vtopic&t=74I was there!!!!!RichardRenes2008-10-16T04:30:19Z2008-10-15T06:49:09ZHe meant the circuit is barely big enough, wide enough for the Asian V6 series, which have smaller cars.http://gpreporters.com/a1gp/reports.php?a=vtopic&t=75A1GP Live Streaming Coverage of Round 1Martin-A12008-10-16T09:28:02Z2008-10-16T09:28:02ZDue to having a website to run here I took advantage of the Live Feed offered by A1GP over the internet.
It seems to me that the quality of the picture this season is better than last season, could be HD cameras, even though the weather was atrocious.
The coverage continued throughout without missing a beat -- usually with most live feeds there is at least a few periods of buffering, it happens with the ITV-F1 online feed -- so that was a positive.
The Qualifying at Zandvoort had been changed to one session due to lack of track time for the teams -- so a little less drama of the one hotshot lap -- even so a few teams couldn't even get on track for this so some more rules were 'greased' to allow them to start from the back of the grid in the Sprint race. It helps when the A1Team.NED grabs pole for the first ever A1GP 'powered by Ferrari' race at their home track.
At this point I have to give a Huge Thumbs Up to the Fans who turned out in their thousands even though the weather gods were doing their best to either Drown them or Blow them into the sea or Both!
The racing started on time and it seemed at times more like motorboat racing than motorcar racing -- cars were spinning everywhere -- cars were hitting each other -- cars were driving on parts of the track they have never driven on before -- none of it could be blamed on the drivers -- however 2 drivers stood out -- Earl Bamber in the A1Team.NZL car showed his class and Fairuz Fauzy in the A1Team.MAL car proved to be the best in the monsoon weather which eventually led to a Red Flag close to the race.
After this first race it was good to see the Feature race start behind the Safety car and again it was a repeat of the Sprint with car carnage right through to the end where it finished behind the Safety car with just 5 cars completing full race distance and A1Team.FRA crossing the line first.
The fact that A1GP managed to get 17 cars to the start line and run both races in such awful weather was just a miracle considering all the doom and gloom predicted beforehand.
I think everyone should get a pat on the back -- from the unsung heroes like team mechanics burning the midnight oil to construct their cars -- the decal guys doing the same [seems they recruited some A1Fans to help out] -- the drivers for literally putting their lives at risk racing in such conditions in brand new cars -- the fans who never wavered in their support throughout the weekend!
Apart for the Live Timing going absent during the Feature race it was a hugely enjoyable experience for me watching the start of Season 4 on my computer courtesy of A1GP.http://gpreporters.com/a1gp/reports.php?a=vtopic&t=73No Entries Here Choose A Race AboveMartin-A12008-10-14T12:49:07Z2008-10-14T12:49:07Z[b]No Entries Here Choose A Race Above[/b]
Entries here will be deleted.http://gpreporters.com/a1gp/reports.php?a=vtopic&t=72No Entries Here Choose A Race AboveMartin-A12008-10-14T12:47:42Z2008-10-14T12:47:42Z[b]No Entries Here Choose A Race Above[/b]
Entries here will be deleted.