SPRINT RACE

A clean start to the Mexican Sprint race led quickly to an action-packed half-hour as a collision between A1 Teams Mexico and Ireland saw both cars leave the track on the first lap. The safety car was deployed as the track was cleared and the remaining cars took their positions behind it.

Unusually, it was under this safety car session that the next big incident occurred. As the pack headed onto the main straight at the end of lap four Japanese driver, Hayanari Shimoda sped to close the gap between himself and New Zealand’s Black Beauty ahead. But as Matt Halliday braked while Shimoda accelerated the two cars collided with Japan flipping over New Zealand’s rear, rolling twice before landing upside down on the main straight. Bodywork covered the track and the safety car continued to lead the field as a safe route through the debris was cleared. A1 Team New Zealand headed into the pit lane at the end of lap five and the safety car peeled off one lap later.

As racing began again, the Netherland’s Jos Verstappen started his advance through the field, improving on his gains from the opening lap. A1 Team South Africa suffered its second blow of the day, retiring at the end of lap seven with Vulindlela losing power and dropping down the field.

The top four places looked set and the battle moved further down the field as Great Britain’s Robbie Kerr edged past experienced Monterrey driver, Patrick Carpentier in the Canadian car. Great Britain moved into tenth place and took on its closest Series’ rival, A1 Team Brazil. On lap 13, Kerr made his move, pulling alongside Christian Fittipaldi but as their wheels touched, the red, white and blue car spun, narrowly missing the Canadian he had overtaken just two laps before. A1 Team Brazil continued to race but as the damaged caused in the collision began to slow the car, Great Britain tried again and climbed above Brazil one lap later.

Commenting on A1 Team France’s twelfth win, Alexandre Premat said: ‘I’m really pleased with the win, but the car was really difficult to drive. There was a lot of understeer and I will have to speak to the engineers to see what we can do for the Feature race. It will be important to get a good start here as it is difficult to overtake. We’ll see what happens.’

Second place man, Neel Jani commented: ‘It’s very difficult to overtake here, and it is so dirty off line there isn’t much you can do. It just isn’t worth the risk in the Sprint race, as the big race is coming up. Commenting on what will be his last race for A1 Team Switzerland, Neel said: ‘I would really like to win the race, we have lead about three Feature races before, some right until the last lap and still not won, so obviously I would like to add a Feature race win to my record.

Finishing third in his first race since Dubai, Enrico Toccacello said: ‘We had a great result in Dubai and it’s great to be back in the car now. It is the nature of A1GP to try different drivers and focus on the nation, but I’m really glad to be back driving. We starting improving in Malaysia, and got better in Dubai, and I showed in this race that I am fast. We have a good set up and I’m confident for the next race.’

	A1 Team	Driver	Time
1	France	Alexandre Premat	29.20.743
2	Switzerland	Neel Jani	29.21.026
3	Italy	Enrico Toccacelo	29.21.617
4	Netherlands	Jos Verstappen	29.22.884
5	Czech Republic	Tomas Enge	29.34.296
6	USA	Bryan Herta	29.40.822
7	Malaysia	Alex Yoong	29.43.613
8	Germany	Timo Scheider	29.44.100
9	Canada	Patrick Capentier	29.46.979
10	Austria	Patrick Friesacher	29.47.654
11	Great Britain	Robbie Kerr	29.49.444
12	Indonesia	Ananda Mikola	29.59.203
13	Lebanon	Graham Rahal	30.02.149
14	Brazil	Christian Fittipaldi	30.11.492
15	China	Tengyi Jiang	30.12.464
16	Australia	Christian Jones	30.33.185
17	South Africa	Stephen Simpson	9 Laps
18	New Zealand	Matt Halliday	4 Laps
19	Portugal	Alvaro Parente	4 Laps
20	Japan	Hayanari Shimoda	3 Laps
21	Ireland	Ralph Firman	0 Laps
22	Mexico	Salvador Duran	0 Laps

FEATURE RACE

The second clean start of the weekend meant all the cars made it round the first lap. As is quite often the case, many of the teams pitted early for their mandatory pit stop with race leader France first in and executing a trouble-free stop in 51.3 seconds. Much to the disappointment of the local fans, A1 Team Mexico was not able to take part in the opening laps as their mechanics were still repairing the damage after the Sprint race incident and the leaders completed four laps before Mexico joined the field.

A couple of teams with problems early on as A1 Team Brazil was given a drive through penalty for a false start and A1 Team Canada for speeding in the pit lane. By the end of lap eight, all but one team had pitted and the one still out in front was A1 Team USA with a lead of over 28 seconds. A1 Team Mexico was still suffering as their car was shown a mechanical black flag and pitted at the end of his seventh lap for repairs and retired from the race at the same time as A1 Team Ireland.

While A1 Team France extended its lead there was some good battles going on behind with Switzerland, Germany and Italy involved in one and New Zealand, Austria and the Czech Republic in another.

An incident going into turn one on lap 22 between A1 Teams Indonesia and Australia saw the only safety car period of the race. Indonesia had just passed Australia but the car of Ananada Mikola then speared into the car of Christian Jones which retired there and then while the Indonesian made it round to the pits for a new nose cone.

The safety car pulled in at the end of lap five and the car of A1 Team GBR was able to overtake that of A1 Team Czech Republic. At this point Robbie Kerr still had eight of his PowerBoosts left and over the next few laps he used them to good effect by passing Austria for seventh on lap 28, and then New Zealand for sixth on lap 30.

The battle for seventh spot was a train headed by A1 Team New Zealand with Austria, the Czech Republic and Portugal fractions of a second behind. The winner of the battle was the Czech Republic who got by both Austria and New Zealand before the chequered flag came out to give A1 Team France its thirteenth win of the season.

While only Switzerland has a mathematical chance of beating France to win the first World Cup of Motorsport, it is all to play for between A1 Teams Great Britain and Brazil with them having swapped places again as Robbie Kerr now goes to the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca 3 points ahead of the Brazilians.

‘The race was fun, and the car was quite good,’ said A1 Team France’s Alexandre Premat. ‘We changed quite a lot in the break after the Sprint race. We got the fastest lap as well which is nice. After the safety car it was really close so I had to push quite hard which was difficult with the tyres as I had no grip.’

Commenting on the possibility of A1 Team France winning the first World Cup of Motorsport with team mate Nicolas Lappierre at the wheel, Alexandre said: ‘I don’t mind really. I think he will do a good job, and I think we could win both races.’

Jos Verstappen driving for A1 Team Netherlands said: ‘After France pitted early we were pushing really hard, as were Switzerland I think. But it is difficult to overtake here and we have to be happy with second. This season we have been really good at pit stops and today’s was fantastic too. I think we missed taking the lead by about half a second. It was very close with Alex after the pit stop. We have done really well to finish second, when we came here on Friday it was really difficult for us, and we have got better and better over the weekend.’

Asked why he didn’t use his PowerBoost button at all in the Feature race, Jos replied ‘It didn’t make much difference here. The straight is very short and it is best to concentrate on the first corner rather than looking for the PowerBoost button.’

A1 Team Switzerland’s Neel Jani said: ‘First of all I would like to thank the team, I’ve had a great time this season. The start today was OK, I took second and was able to put pressure on France pretty much straight away. Our pit stop was good too, but in the end we didn’t improve the car enough in between the two races, as the other teams did.’

Commenting on his time racing in A1 Grand Prix, Neel said: ‘In the beginning it is no different, it is like racing for yourself. But after a while you get more into it, and realise you are driving for Switzerland. You start to have a really national feeling, with all the support and ambassadors visiting. It gives you a special feeling to be driving for your country. I’ve had a really nice time driving in A1 Grand Prix and I’ve managed to get lots of podiums. As they say in German, one eye is crying and the other is laughing. I’m sad to leave but looking forward to my next challenge.’

	A1 Team	Driver	Time	Gap first
1	France	Alexandre Premat	52.26.709
2	Netherlands	Jos Verstappen	52.27.489	+0.780
3	Switzerland	Neel Jani	52.30.234	+3.525
4	Germany	Timo Scheider	52.31.297	+4.588
5	Italy	Enrico Toccacelo	52.31.703	+4.994
6	Great Britain	Robbie Kerr	52.38.211	+11.502
7	Czech Republic	Tomas Enge	52.41.549	+14.840
8	New Zealand	Matt Halliday	52.45.537	+18.828
9	Austria	Patrick Fiesacher	52.45.849	+19.140
10	Portugal	Alvaro Parente	52.46.286	+19.577
11	Malaysia	Alex Yoong	52.49.709	+23.000
12	Brazil	Christian Fittipaldi	52.50.270	+23.561
13	USA	Bryan Herta	52.50.585	+23.876
14	Lebanon	Graham Rahal	52.52.226	+25.517
15	Canada	Patrick Carpentier	52.39.578	1 lap
16	Indonesia	Ananda Mikola	53.05.966	1 lap
17	China	Tengyi Jiang	53.12.807	1 lap
18	South Africa	Stephen Simpson	55.20.794	1 lap
19	Australia	Christian Jones	20 laps	16 laps
20	Ireland	Ralph Firman	16 laps	20 laps
21	Mexico	Salvador Duran	6 laps	30 laps
22	Japan	Hayanari Shimoda	Did not start

The bonus point for the fastest race lap of the day went to A1 Team France who recorded a time of 1.21.100 in lap 17 of the Feature race.

Series Points to date – A1 Grand Prix of Nations, Parque Fundidora, Monterrey, Mexico – 26 February 2006

1	France	153
2	Switzerland	121
3	Great Britain	73
4	Brazil	70
5	Netherlands	69
6	New Zealand	64
7	Malaysia	53
8	Portugal	51
9	Ireland	50
10	Canada	44
11	Czech Republic	41
12	Italy	40
13	Australia	37
14	Mexico	28
15	Germany	25
16	South Africa	20
17	USA	20
18	Austria	12
19	Indonesia	10
20	Japan	8
21	China	6
22	Pakistan	4

The tenth round of A1 Grand Prix, the World Cup of Motorsport will be held at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, California, USA on 10 – 12 March 2006.