France dominated proceedings in the second round of the A1 Grand Prix series in Germany, with Nicolas Lapierre winning both the sprint and feature races, while Team South Africa had a disappointing result.
France dominated proceedings in the second round of the A1 Grand Prix series in Germany on Sunday, with Nicolas Lapierre winning both the sprint and feature races.
The pole-sitter beat Switzerland’s Neel Jani to the line in the sprint race, with the winner of both first round races at Brands Hatch, Nelson Piquet junior finishing third.
The Frenchman repeated his earlier performance in the day’s feature race. Though Switzerland had a cracking start to be first at turn one, Lapierre grabbed the lead on the fourth lap before his pit stop on lap 14 handed the lead back to the Swiss. However, Jani was to lose his advantage at a longer pit stop and eventually only finished fifth.
The day’s surprise package came in the form of Team Great Britain’s Robbie Kerr who was relegated to the back of the grid for the feature race after a turn one-tussle with USA’s Scott Speed. While Speed again failed to finish a race, Kerr scythed through the field to finish on the podium.
Canadian Sean McIntosh also had a great drive after starting from seventh on the grid and finishing third on the podium.
The South African team, with driver Tomas Scheckter, had its fair share of woes and encountered problems throughout qualifying. Scheckter managed 12th in the sprint race, and things did not get any better in the feature race – the car was parked on the 15th lap after suffering a snapped battery cable caused by chafing from the car’s excessive vibration.
“I managed to make a quick, clean start and improved a couple of places in the early laps,” Scheckter said. The car got better as the weekend progressed and although I was still battling with the handling and a lack of top speed, the improvements we made after qualifying and between the two races allowed me to record my quickest lap of the weekend after the pit stop.”
“We’ve definitely found some significant improvement over the three days and, although we struggled, we’ve learnt a lot and will be putting this information and experience to good use for the next race at Estoril in two weeks’ time,” he concluded.
Several cars incurred drive-through penalties for offences ranging from jumping the start (Czech Republic) to overtaking during a safety car period (Malaysia). Brazil was also cited for a pit lane infringement, though the car was flung into retirement on the 26th lap after Piquet junior became trapped between two cars.
Several teams experienced wheel nut problems during their pit stops and had to concede valuable time and even race positions during their stops. The A1 grand prix organisers will investigate the issue ahead of the next round.
Brazil continues to lead the overall standings with 30 points, with only one point separating it from France and New Zealand. Switzerland (17 points) and Australia (16 points) complete the top five ahead of the next round at Estoril in Portugal.
