Nicholas Lapierre has held on to his pole position to take top spot for the sprint race at the Eurospeedway, Germany, for the second round of the A1 Grand Prix season.
“I had a big gap on the first lap which was fantastic for me and then I just tried to manage that gap. Then the safety car came out and I had a good race start after that and the situation was under control. The balance of the car was not perfect but I was still able to win the race so it’s good for the next one,” Lapierre commented on his sprint race performance.
He added, “The next race is going to be more difficult at the start because it is the standing start so we need to make a good start. It is more difficult because we have a pit stop strategy but the team is fantastic for pit stops. They did some very good practices but we will have to see what happens this race. It is my first race for A1GP and the team gave me a car to win the race so it is a fantastic start for us, but now we have to focus on the second one which is as well very important and we will see tonight where we are.” Lapierre has held onto his pole position for the feature race, and is looking strong for a double win for the round just as Team Brazil did so at Brand Hatch last round.
It was not so good for Team Italy, who were given a 25 second penalty for overtaking while the yellow flag was out, and was moved from eighth to 17th.
A1 Team Driver Time
1 France Nicolas Lapierre 30:10.429
2 Switzerland Neel Jani 30:12.442
3 Brazil Nelson Piquet Jr 30:12.887
4 New Zealand Jonny Reid 30:18.475
5 Germany Timo Scheider 30:19.280
6 Malaysia Alex Yoong 30:33.848
7 Canada Sean McIntosh 30:34.438
8 Mexico David Martinez 30:35.838
9 Ireland Ralph Firman 30:37.010
10 Japan Hideki Noda 30:38.271
11 Czech Republic Tomas Enge 30:38.671
12 South Africa Tomas Scheckter 30:50.690
13 Austria Mathias Lauda 30:51.436
14 Indonesia Ananda Mikola 30:53.0A1 Grand Prix
15 Australia Christian Jones 30:53.885
16 India Karun Chandhok 30:54.308
17 Italy Enrico Toccacelo 30:59.954
18 China Tengyi Jiang 16 Laps
19 Lebanon Khalil Beschir 7 laps
20 Portugal Alvaro Parente 3 laps
21 Pakistan Adam Khan 2 laps
22 Netherlands Jos Verstappen 1 lap
23 USA Scott Speed 0 laps
24 Great Britain Robbie Kerr 0 laps
Dane Norton
DailyF1News.com
