The seventh round of the A1GP world cup of motorsport was held in Durban at the weekend. Canada and Switzerland took pole position on the tight street circuit on Saturday and stayed ahead of the pack in the Sprint and Feature races respectively to record wins.
Robert Wickens of Team Canada led the sprint race going into the first corner of the circuit. Unfortunately New Zealand’s Jonny Reid misjudged the distance between himself and Wickens’car and the two collided, sending the Canadian car into Team GBR’s Oliver Jarvis. Luckily the 18-year old Canadian managed to retain control and broke into a pace that saw him with a 4,2 second lead over the rest of the pack. The safety car came out on lap 11 when Bruno Junqueira in the Brazilian car crashed in the chicane at turns 5/6.
Wickens continued his form after the restart and held off the challenge from Team Switzerland’s Neel Jani and Jarvis (who had also recovered well after the incident involving Canada and New Zealand on the first lap). However, the damage done to the GBR car kept Jarvis honest and Jani also took it easy due to the championship points at stake.
It was Michael Ammermuller of Team Germany who eventually ended the race with minutes to spare. On the final turn of lap 14, he hit the back of Jeroen Bleekemolen of the Netherlands, causing him to hit the wall and the Dutch driver to spin. Wickens took the win (a decision by stewards that went back to lap 11) followed by Jarvis, Jani and Team China’s Congfu Cheng who worked his way up from starting in tenth. Jonny Reid ran the fastest lap trying to make for his time lost when his nose was damaged during the collision with Wickens.
“It’s a great experience. I knew that we had a very good chance at winning the race because we were quick in qualifying and we had a really solid race car through practice,” said the young Canadian. “I love the circuit, I’ve always really enjoyed street circuits my entire life and this ones no different. It’s a really fast street circuit and it’s probably one of the coolest street circuits I’ve ever raced on”, said Wickens.
The Feature race was marked with even more incidents, as the notorious Vodacom hairpin, once again took victims on the first lap. Jani came through clean and led the first half of the field down the circuit, however Cheng got stuck coming out of the turn and consequently the other half of the field got stuck behind the Chinese car.
Despite being struck down with a stomach virus the previous day, Jani charged relentlessly to retain first place. Wickens was in contention for second, but spun out at the Vodacom hairpin. While he tried to spin the car around to get back in the chase, Jarvis (who came through the hairpin cleanly) hit the Canadian car’s rear end.
Not long after the race restarted, an overambitious move by Adrian Zaugg of Team South Africa saw the red flag waved with five minutes to spare and the race ended prematurely behind the safety car. Zaugg (who started in 15th) was running in a hard-fought sixth-place when he tried to pass Bleekemolen on the inside of the first turn but braked too late and careened into the Netherlands car. This caused a multi-car pile up once again.
Jani crossed the line first, followed by Loic Duval of Team France and debut driver Filipe Albuquerue for Team Portugal (who fought his way from ninth on the grid). Other good performers on the day were Fairuz Fauzy of Team Malaysia (finishing fifth from 11th) and Cheng, who while finishing sixth from 11th, managed to clock the fastest lap.
“I had a lot of stomach pain and cramps and obviously many runs to the toilet, so this morning I felt really bad. I got two litres of fluids by drip and that was a little bit better afterwards but still the cramps and everything was still going on, so the race was really tough and in the end I really had problems to concentrate. I really felt how dehydrated I was and the concentration was really getting tough in the end so I was happy with all the safety cars. My mechanics did a superb job. They got the car ready and the pit stops were good, so I have to thank the team that they gave me again the car and I just had to drive it”, said Jani.
“The team did a great job. We overtook everybody. I mean on the track we were faster than them and fortunately for us Canada spun – I was pretty lucky actually because I almost crashed into him. It was just a great race, maybe the best of A1GP for me. It’s like a victory for us so now I feel really happy. I want to thank all my team because it’s the last race for me. I want to wish them the best for the rest of the season”, said Duval, who will not be able to compete in the remaining rounds of A1GP due to other racing commitments.
