After a two week break, the latest A1GP round was held in Sentul, Indonesia for the final round of 2006. After the opening four rounds of the series Team Germany lead the series after taking the lead from Team Mexico in China.
The 4.12km Sentul track is set against a backdrop of the spectacular scenery of the area, in the shadow of volcanoes and thick rainforest, and features fast, flowing corners up to 15m wide and straights up to 900m in length. Completed in 1994, the circuit was the first serious attempt in South Asia to host a Formula 1 Grand Prix. The country never hosted the championship, however, but hosted a round of MotoGP and regularly welcomes the Asian Formula 3 Super Series.
Last year’s race provided thrilling racing. With A1 Team France taking victory in the Sprint race after overtaking pole sitter Robbie Kerr on the first lap. The Feature race produced a surprise result, with Canada’s Sean McIntosh finishing on the top step of the podium despite starting last on the grid and suffering a drive through penalty.
As always the weekend’s action started on Friday with the Rookie Practice session. Fastest was Team GB driver Oliver Jarvis, second was Loic Duval for Team France and Jaroslav Janis who is making his A1GP racing debut was third fastest. Home hero Moreno Soeprapto who almost died in a fiery accident here earlier this season while racing in Asian Formula Three set the eight fastest time
The first official session saw Team France driver Nicolas Lapierre, who if reports are to be believed is competing in his last A1GP event of the series, set fastest time, from Robbie Kerr of Team GB and Ryan Briscoe of Australia. Local man Anada Mikola was thirteenth fastest.
Saturdays final practice session a return to the top of the timesheets for former series leaders, Mexico and driver Salvador Duran. He set the fastest time from Kerr in second and Phil Giebler driving for Team USA. Mikola ended the session with the twelfth fastest time.
In qualifying it was Jonny Reid of Team New Zealand who narrowly came out on top after a thrilling session.
His best two times was 0.034 seconds faster than last year's pole-sitter, Kerr, who joins him on the front row. Series leaders Germany with Nico Hulkenberg had to settle for third despite topping the timesheets much of the session.
Reid was able to set top five times in all sessions on his way to record his second pole position of the year
After setting the fastest time in the morning practice session Duran improved his lap times in qualifying to start the race from fourth position after a battle through all four segments with Giebler, who started fifth. Defending champions France startedt the race in seventh behind Australia.
Team Ireland debutant Richard Lyons caused a red flag in the second segment when he ran wide into a tyre wall at Turn Three. He continued in qualifying and set eighteenth fastest time. The other debutant Jaroslav Janis for Team Czech Republic qualified in fourteenth. The Indonesian fans were hoping for more from Mikola who could only manage to qualify seventeenth despite some impressive practice pace.
Sunday was Team New Zealand’s day. Starting from pole in the sprint race Reid dominated with a lights-to-flag drive victory to record the nation’s first A1GP win. From Duran gave Reid some pressure in the closing laps but was unable to pass and had to settle for second. Kerr was the final man on the podium.
Duran had a great start to leap from fourth on the grid to second at the first corner where he stayed for the remainder of the fifteen lap race to record Mexico’s fourth podium of the year. Kerr didn’t get a good start.
Not only was he passed by Duran he was also passed by Giebler and was fourth at the first corner. He was able to re-pass Giebler at the start of lap 2 regain third place. The worst start was made by Hulkenberg who dropped from third to fifth and only just held fifth from Briscoe. Briscoe later found a way past when Hulkenberg made an attempt to pass Giebler for fourth but when Briscoe himself attempted to pass Giebler, Hulkenberg was able to regain his position.
Home team Indonesia enjoyed a race long battle with Malaysia and Netherlands for 12th position. To the delight of the home crowd Mikola was able to pass Jeroen Bleekemolen in the Team Netherlands car for thirteenth place however when he attempted to pass Team Malaysia drive Alex Yoong for twelfth the Dutchman capitalised passing Mikola and relegating him to 14th.
In the feature race Team New Zealand’s day got even better when Reid completed the double win. In a rain-affected and incident-filled Feature race, Reid won by just over two seconds from Germany's Nico Hulkenberg and France's Nicolas Lapierre.
Pole sitter Reid led into the first corner and withstood pressure from Duran and Kerr for the lead. Hulkenberg pulled level with Duran through turns five and six, but it was Kerr who finally found a way into second. Alan van der Merwe had an outstanding start for Team South Africa moving from eighth to fifth by the second sector and past Duran into fourth by the end of the first lap.
Hulkenberg took the lead from Reid at the start of lap three and went on to pull out a six second lead over the next five laps.
The rain that had interrupted the start of the race cleared and the track started to dry team strategy became the deciding factor in the out come of the race. Reid was amongst the first to stop on lap 16, with Hulkenberg pulling in two laps later. Hulkenberg was able to maintain the lead following the stops and after a trip across the gravel he was still out front but Reid was closing on him.
As the track was rapidly drying most drivers opted to return to the pits for a second time to change to slick tyres. Hulkenberg was one of them, stopping on lap 30. With a clear track Reid was able to set some fast lap times and by the time he stopped for slicks on lap 33 he rejoined ahead of Hulkenberg.
Kerr was running in third place up until lap 34 when Lapierre caught and passed him. He was set for fourth place until a mistake saw him run wide on lap 39 and stall the car. The safety car came out while marshals removed the car. When it returned to the pits there with only three minutes of the race remaining
Reid held onto his advantage over a charging Hulkenberg, with Lapierre in third. Italy finished a remarkable fourth after starting fifteenth on the grid. Bleekemolen was fifth and Yoong sixth, despite tyre pressure problems. Duran finished seventh for Mexico despite starting second. Janis was eight on his A1GP debut.
Neel Jani capped another disappointing weekend for Team Switzerland finishing ninth. Giebler was running with the top three until he spun and stalled on lap 43. Marshals got the American back on the road but he slipped back to tenth to score the final point.
The bonus point for the fastest race lap went to Kerr on lap four of the Sprint race.
After five of the twelve rounds Team Germany still lead the series with 48 points. Team Great Britain are in second with 36 points and Team Mexico bounced back from a bad weekend in Sepang to be third in the series with 33 points. Reigning champions France are a point further back in fourth.
Written: Sun, 10 Dec 2006 14:47:55
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December 10, 2006A1GP - NZ take the flag in Sentul
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