After a chaotic Mexican round of A1GP, Jonny Reid piloted the Kiwi car to a sprint victory, while Adam Carroll of Team Ireland gave the Irish their first ever win in the feature.
For the sprint race, Adrian Zaugg of Team South Africa and Reid sat in the front row for the rolling start. Unfortunately, the field never made it to the start line as Zaugg’s car stuttered and kept those close by in check. Further down the grid, the rest of the field assumed maximum acceleration before realising too late that the front line wasn’t moving at all – resulting in one of the worst pile-ups in the brief history of A1GP (and a red flag while the race hadn’t even started). Michael Ammermuller of Team Germany suffered the worst damage, first the Pakistani vehicle gracefully sailed over the German car’s rear and then the Australian entry ended up mashing it yet again.
Since the Sprint race technically hadn’t started yet, pit crews went away at work repairing the damage caused during the confusion of the fumbled start to ready the cars for another rolling start. The only car that didn’t make the grid a second time was Ammermuller’s – unfortunately his race engineer, Rob Creswell, was injured when a wheel rolled over him and dislocated his shoulder.
After the restart, Zaugg managed to hold the lead for three laps until he lost it to Reid after suffering a puncture. Great Britain’s Oliver Jarvis for and Neel Jani for Team Switzerland followed in second and third respectively. The safety car was called out halfway during the race when Czech Republic’s Filip Salaguarda spun at the chicane.
The threat to Jarvis from Jani for second place reached a climax when the race was back to green. While the field had bunched up, Jani stuck quite close to the British car’s tail and used his power boost for an overtake manoeuvre – and still wasn’t fast enough to steal second away from Jarvis. Unbeknownst to Jani, the USA and Irish entries had sneaked up to him while he was preoccupied with Jarvis and this time he (and third position) was the one preyed upon. Meanwhile, China and Brazil made contact at the aforementioned chicane and Cong Fu Cheng had to bring his car in for repairs.
Unchallenged, Reid piloted the New Zealand car, dubbed “black beauty” to its fourth victory this year followed by Jarvis and Jani, who was still being dogged by Ireland and USA. The Chinese pit crew did an excellent job on Cheng’s car, as he managed the fastest lap rocketing out of the pits.
“It has been a very difficult couple of rounds especially in Durban, but that’s motor racing and it’s really good to bounce back here with a win and survive the carnage at the first start. Adrian accelerated and braked and accelerated and braked, then Neel almost ran into the back of me and I think Olly (Jarvis) ran up the back of someone as well,” said Reid.
The Feature race wasn’t riddled with as many restarts, but was hampered by a problem with the lights. A green flag signalled the start of the race and Robert Wickens of Team Canada quickly took the lead as Jani tucked into second behind him.
Five laps down, Wickens ran into a bit of grass allowing Jani to really threaten him for the lead and due to a clutch problem, Jani did eventually pass him. While the race leaders came in for their first pit stops, the Indonesian car led its first lap in A1GP. When the stops were completed Jani retained the lead and Carroll emerged in second place – due in part to his pit crews efficiency and the bad luck experienced by New Zealand and Canada.
Wickens fought valiantly to retain third, but wasn’t able to hold it much longer as Jarvis powered past him and fought off Ammermuller who was now challenging for fourth. Luckily a frustrated Jonathan Summerton was able to gett around the German and eased the pressure on Wicken’s shoulders a bit.
Jani held the lead going into the second pitstops, while local hero David Garza remained out for another lap – much to the delight of his fellow countrymen. Back in the pits, tension was building and Switzerland and Ireland ended up side by side as they were exiting the pit lane. Carroll managed to take the lead, but officials later decided that in order to keep up with the Irish driver, Jani was speeding in the pits, so the championship leading team got black flagged and ended the race in 19th.
Carroll went on to take the victory while Jarvis (who managed the fastest lap) and Summerton took second and third respectively. Quite fitting for the Irish actually, especially with St Patricks Day being celebrated today.
“We tried to relax and just go racing and have a bit of fun. We still put in the hard work but I think everyone was just a bit more relaxed and we were able to show our true potential. We knew the guys could do it and they did and hopefully this is the first (win) of many – it’s just fantastic. I had champagne in my trophy and I don’t think the celebrating will stop tonight – it will probably finish sometime tomorrow afternoon, I just hope everybody makes the flight,” said an ecstatic Carroll.
The series now moves toward the penultimate round in China at the Shanghai International Circuit next month. If Jani and Switzerland make more errors like they did this weekend, the last two rounds of A1GP could turn out to be very interesting indeed.
