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Switzerland Claims Feature Race Victory in New Zealand
A1 Team Switzerland claimed its second win of the season in the weekend's feature race in A1GP Taupo. Neel Jani finished ahead of Ireland’s Adam Carroll and Portugal’s Filipe Albuquerque with Ireland retaining its position at the top of the A1GP championship standing.
Ireland had a clean getaway from pole position but the Netherlands’ Robert Doornbos was slow off the mark from the front row, allowing Portugal to take advantage, and so dropping back to fifth. Albuquerque was right on the gearbox of Ireland as the field headed into turn one, tapping the Irish car and briefly losing momentum allowing a quick-starting Jani to move up from fourth on the grid to second.
Australia’s John Martin made an aggressive start to his Feature race, getting Jackeroo ahead of the Netherlands after first dropping behind Switzerland but remaining in fourth. New Zealand’s Chris van der Drift had a problematic start having to pit with a puncture after a collision with Lebanon’s Daniel Morad. Morad retired in the pit lane but New Zealand was able to rejoin, albeit a lap down.
By the end of lap one, Ireland led from Switzerland, Portugal, Australia, Netherlands, France and Malaysia, Brazil, USA and India.
Ireland began to pull out a small gap at the front, which was 0.874-seconds from Jani by the end of lap four. Carroll continued to record fastest laps while Monaco’s Clivio Piccione capitalised on a mistake from India’s Narain Karthikeyan to take ninth.
On lap eight, the first pit stop window opened and the emerald green far was first in the pit lane. A good stop from the Irish squad saw the Celtic Tiger retain the lead, while another great stop from the Australian squad got Martin out closer to the leader. Switzerland pitted but wasn’t able to take the lead, while Portugal stayed out deep into the pit window in an attempt to make up ground. After recording the fastest lap, Albuquerque dived into the pit lane but with Carroll’s new tyres working well, he rejoined in third place.
On lap 10, Monaco and Brazil were running wheel-to-wheel when the young Brazilian seemingly closed the door causing the pair to touch, with the result being Brazil spinning across the track and Piccione losing his front wing and running off-track.
After the first round of pit stops, the order settled and was Ireland from Switzerland, Portugal, Australia, France, Netherlands, Malaysia, India., USA and Great Britain. Ireland now had a comfortable 3.773-second lead over Switzerland.
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