MOTOR SPORT: Switzerland moved ahead of Ireland at the top of the A1GP points standings with victory in the feature race in South Africa today. Adam Carroll was forced out on the first lap of the feature race with Swiss driver Neel Jani then taking the chequered flag.
Carroll, who had led the championship going into the round, was unhappy after colliding with Malaysia’s Fairuz Fauzy on the first lap..
Carroll said: “He just hit me in the back right corner. I’m really annoyed with it, I’m pretty angry about it.”
Jani took control of the race at the pit stop and was never headed after that point. Brazil’s Felipe Guimaraes, who had hit the wall during qualifying yesterday, took his first ever A1GP podium with second after passing Monaco’s pole man Clivio Piccione.
Holland’s Jeroen Bleekemolen backed up his sprint race win with fourth ahead of Portugal’s Filipe Albuquerque and Lebanon’s Daniel Morad.
Switzerland now lead the standings with 73 points ahead of Ireland on 70 and Portugal in third on 64.
Bleekemolen had taken the sprint race win ahead of Albuquerque who had benefited when Jani lost a place as he had to negotiate the Malaysian car in the pit lane.
Bleekemolen said: “I feel really great, it went amazing. But it was a really hard race at the beginning.
Bleekemolen had thought his race was over when his engine cut out during the pit stop.
He said: “After the pit stop the car just stopped and I feared the race would be over, but it started working again. I lost about one and half or two seconds, but luckily we were still able to win.”
A1GP Results: 1 Switzerland (Jani) 1hr 02mins 24.617secs, 2 Brazil (Guimaraes) 1:02:37.793, 3 Monaco (Piccione) 1:02:38.810, 4 Netherlands (Bleekemolen) 1:02:41.641, 5 Portugal (Albuguergue) 1:02:42.612, 6 Lebanon (Morad) 1:02:55.827, 7 Great Britain (Watts) 1:02:58.945, 8 USA (Andretti) 1:03:23.617, 9 Pakistan (Ali) 1:03:28.612, 10 Italy (Piscopo) 1:03:29.473, 11 Germany (Ammermuller) 1:03:33.220, 12 India (Karthikeyan) 1:03:33.767, 13 Australia (Martin) 1:03:45.162, 14 China (Tung) 39:35.335 +18 laps, 15 Malaysia (Fauzy) 57:24.109 +23 laps, 16 South Africa (Zaugg) 24:11.627 +25 laps, 17 New Zealand (Bamber) 4:49.816 +37 laps, 18 France (Prost) 4:55.939 +37 laps, 19 Mexico (Duran) 4:57.129 +37 laps, 20 Ireland (Carroll) no time +40 laps
Championship Standings: 1 Switzerland 73pts, 2 Ireland 70, 3 Portugal 64, 4 Netherlands 56, 5 France 41, 6 New Zealand 36, 7 Malaysia 32, 8 Australia 30, 9 Monaco 23, 10 Great Britain 20, 11 South Africa & USA 19, 13 Brazil 16, 14 Italy 10, 15 India & Lebanon 8, 17 China & Korea 4, 19 Indonesia 2, 20 Germany & Mexico 0