24/11/07 - SEPANG, MALAYSIA A1GP: QUALIFYING DAY 2

Switzerland’s Neel Jani put in a sensational performance during qualifying for the A1GP Sepang, Malaysia this afternoon to take pole position for tomorrow’s Sprint and Feature race. The Swiss star will start the Sprint race from P1 tomorrow morning for the third consecutive season at Sepang and he will lead the drivers off the grid for A1GP’s 50th ever race tomorrow afternoon.

Sprint race qualifying
Neel Jani continued his magnificent form around the Sepang circuit, setting the quickest lap during the first qualifying segment and going on to better it in the second to snatch pole position for the Sprint race from A1 Team France, demoting Loic Duval to second on the grid.

Great Britain’s Oliver Jarvis and German rookie Michael Ammermüller will line up alongside each other on the second row of the Sprint race grid, followed by Canada’s Robert Wickens and championship leader New Zealand’s Jonny Reid in fifth and sixth place respectively.

Feature race qualifying
Having secured pole position for the Sprint race, Jani stamped his authority on the weekend by going on to also take pole for the Feature race, recording an outstanding lap of 1m47.648s in the closing minutes of the session, almost a second quicker than GBR’s Oliver Jarvis who will line up alongside him on the front row.

Germany’s Michael Ammermüller and Frenchman Loic Duval qualified in third and fourth position respectively while the Netherlands’ Jeroen Bleekemolen will start the Feature race from fifth on the grid. Brazilian rookie Sergio Jimenez will line up alongside the Dutchman in sixth place on the third row.

After a challenging session, home nation Malaysia’s Alex Yoong will start the Sprint race from 19th position and the Feature race from 15th.

Neel Jani was delighted with his final flying lap in the Swiss car and is aiming to convert his team’s double pole into a double victory tomorrow:

‘I thought that my 48.4 which I did on old tyres might already be enough for pole position. So on my last round I just went out and thought just go easy, don’t push too much or break too late, and suddenly there was a 47.7 so maybe that was the solution! James, my engineer, and the team adjusted the car for each segment - we made some little adjustments on the tyres with ride heights and each time I went out the car was better and everything was just perfect. I hope we do tomorrow what we didn’t do the last two years – get both race wins.’

The 23-year-old driver was also keen to recognise the contribution of Swiss rookie Rahel Frey, who took part in the first practice session at Sepang on Friday morning:

‘My set up was not so far from what she (Rahel) figured out more or less so I have to thank her for that. It’s a team effort with the rookie session and you have to go step by step.’

French driver Loic Duval knows the Sepang circuit well but struggled with the balance of the car during today’s qualifying session:

‘I’ve raced here before in a different category so it wasn’t so difficult for me to learn the track. The braking points are a bit different in an A1GP car obviously but anyway it was enough to be at the front this weekend. We had quite a bit of understeer during the first three qualifying segments, so we tried something different in the last one to try to take pole, but then I suffered from big oversteer so it wasn’t good actually. We’re not quick enough to beat Neel this weekend in qualifying anyway.’

Great Britain’s Oliver Jarvis, who will start the Sprint race from third on the grid and the Feature race from second, commented:

‘We put on a new set of tyres for Qualifying 1 and the difference was amazing. Unfortunately it just caught me out as the car had a lot of oversteer. I turned into the double right hander and the car turned in immediately and I clipped the curb and nearly went off. So we didn’t really set a competitive time in Q1 which meant we had to take Qualifying 2 quite cautiously. I think it would have been possible to get pole for the Sprint but we didn’t have the pace for a 1.47, so congratulations to Neel and the team, they did a fantastic job to take pole in both.’

Tomorrow’s Sprint race at Sepang, Malaysia will start at 11.00 local time and the 70-minute Feature race will start at 15:00.

Sprint race qualifying results - A1GP Sepang, Malaysia (round 3 of 10)

POS

A1 TEAM

DRIVER

 TIME

GAP FIRST

1

SWITZERLAND

Neel JANI

01:48.630

+  

2

FRANCE

Loic DUVAL

01:48.845

+0.215

3

GREAT BRITAIN

Oliver JARVIS

01:48.864

+0.234

4

GERMANY

Michael AMMERMÜLLER

01:49.219

+0.589

5

CANADA

Robert WICKENS

01:49.252

+0.622

6

NEW ZEALAND

Jonny REID

01:49.330

+0.700

7

BRAZIL

Sergio JIMENEZ

01:49.376

+0.746

8

SOUTH AFRICA

Adrian ZAUGG

01:49.525

+0.895

9

CHINA

Congfu CHENG

01:49.535

+0.905

10

NETHERLANDS

Jeroen BLEEKEMOLEN

01:49.677

+1.047

11

USA

Jonathan SUMMERTON

01:49.758

+1.128

12

AUSTRALIA

Ian DYK

01:49.898

+1.268

13

IRELAND

Adam CARROLL

01:49.915

+1.285

14

INDIA

Narain KARTHIKEYAN

01:50.226

+1.596

15

PORTUGAL

Joao URBANO

01:50.329

+1.699

16

MEXICO

Michel JOURDAIN

01:50.364

+1.734

17

CZECH REPUBLIC

Erik JANIS

01:50.401

+1.771

18

ITALY

Enrico TOCCACELO

01:50.546

+1.916

19

MALAYSIA

Alex YOONG

01:50.653

+2.023

20

LEBANON

Chris ALAJAJIAN

01:50.775

+2.145

21

INDONESIA

Satrio HERMANTO

01:51.618

+2.988

22

PAKISTAN

Adam KHAN

01:51.819

+3.189

Feature race qualifying results - A1GP Sepang, Malaysia (round 3 of 10)

POS

A1 TEAM

A1 DRIVER

 TIME

GAP FIRST

1

SWITZERLAND

Neel JANI

01:47.648

+ 

2

GREAT BRITAIN

Oliver JARVIS

01:48.608

+0.960

3

GERMANY

Michael AMMERMÜLLER

01:48.736

+1.088

4

FRANCE

Loic DUVAL

01:48.807

+1.159

5

NETHERLANDS

Jeroen BLEEKEMOLEN

01:49.021

+1.373

6

BRAZIL

Sergio JIMENEZ

01:49.110

+1.462

7

IRELAND

Adam CARROLL

01:49.248

+1.600

8

CHINA

Congfu CHENG

01:49.308

+1.660

9

SOUTH AFRICA

Adrian ZAUGG

01:49.324

+1.676

10

NEW ZEALAND

Jonny REID

01:49.353

+1.705

11

INDIA

Narain KARTHIKEYAN

01:49.543

+1.895

12

CANADA

Robert WICKENS

01:49.642

+1.994

13

USA

Jonathan SUMMERTON

01:49.818

+2.170

14

AUSTRALIA

Ian DYK

01:49.868

+2.220

15

MALAYSIA

Alex YOONG

01:49.997

+2.349

16

CZECH REPUBLIC

Erik JANIS

01:50.020

+2.372

17

PORTUGAL

Joao URBANO

01:50.109

+2.461

18

ITALY

Enrico TOCCACELO

01:50.193

+2.545

19

INDONESIA

Satrio HERMANTO

01:50.651

+3.003

20

MEXICO

Michel JOURDAIN

01:50.869

+3.221

21

PAKISTAN

Adam KHAN

01:50.871

+3.223

22

LEBANON

Chris ALAJAJIAN

01:51.161

+3.513

* A1 Team Lebanon will start tomorrow’s Feature race from the back of the grid after having its lap time from the third qualifying session disqualified when the car was found to be under the minimum weight at the end of that segment.

Reporting by A1GP.com

TOP^  
Neel Jani (Team Switzerland) will start both of tomorrow's races from pole position.
(Picture A1GP.com)
Loric Duval will start second and fourth for Team France.
(Picture A1GP.com)
Oliver Jarvis will be looking for a win for Team great Britain tomorrow.
(Picture A1GP.com)
Team Germany will start from the top four for both races
(Picture A1GP.com)
Sergio Jimenez has helped push Team Brazil into a consistent top ten qualifier.
(Picture A1GP.com)
Robert Wickens was right on the pace for Team Canada.
(Picture A1GP.com)
Adam Carroll is still getting to grips with the Team Ireland car.
(Picture A1GP.com)
Congfu Cheng (Team China) qualified in the top ten for both races.
(Picture A1GP.com)
Team Netherlands will field their usual driver, Jeroen Bleekemolen.
(Picture A1GP.com)
Adrian Zaugg was not quite as competitive as usual in the Team South Africa car.
(Picture A1GP.com)
The Malaysian fans will be very disappointed to see the Team Malaysia car only managing a best of fifteenth.
(Picture A1GP.com)
Ian Dyk will be racing for Team Australia this weekend.
(Picture A1GP.com)
Jonathan Summerton (Team USA).
(Picture A1GP.com)
Narain Karthikeyan will be disappointed with his qualifying results for Team India.
(Picture A1GP.com)