2005 A1 GRAND PRIX

A1 GP (2005/2006)

RACE SCHEDULE

• FRIDAY 4th November 2005
  13.00 – 14.00 60 min A1 Grand Prix Practice #1
  16.00 – 17.00 60 min A1 Grand Prix Practice #2
• SATURDAY 5th November 2005
  11.00 – 12.00 60 min A1 Grand Prix Practice #3
  14.15 – 14.30 15 min A1 Grand Prix Qualifying
  14.40 – 14.55 15 min A1 Grand Prix Qualifying
  15.05 – 15.20 15 min A1 Grand Prix Qualifying
  15.30 – 15.45 15 min A1 Grand Prix Qualifying
• SUNDAY 6th November 2005
  10.00 – 10.15 15 min A1 Grand Prix Warm Up
  13.30 – 14.00 30 min A1 Grand Prix Sprint Race
  15.00 – 16.00 60 min A1 Grand Prix Feature Race

FEATURE RACE RESULT, NOV 5, 2005

• 1 FRANCE (Nicolas Lapierre) 40 laps
• 2 GREAT BRITAIN (Robbie Kerr) +2.47
• 3 SWITZERLAND (Neel Jani ) +3
• 4 HOLLAND - Jos Verstappen +3.5
• 5 MALAYSIA - Alex Yoong +4.8
• 6 AUSTRALIA - Will Davison +5.4
• 7 POR Alvaro Parente
• 8 IRE Michael Daveney
• 9 NZL Jonny Reid
• 10 BRA Nelson Piquet
  11 USA Bryan Herta
  12 PAK Adam Khan
  13 LIB Basil Shaaban
  14 IND Armaan Ebrahim
• DNF:
  CAN, JAP, CHN, AUT, CZE, RUS, MEX, GER, ITA, RSA

SPRINT RACE RESULT, NOV 5, 2005

• 1 FRANCE (Nicolas Lapierre) 19 laps
• 2 PORTUGAL +8.6
• 3 BRAZIL
• 4 IRELAND 19 30:45.067
• 5 GREAT BRITAIN 19 30:50.055
• 6 SWITZERLAND 19 30:52.566
• 7 NETHERLANDS 19 30:57.138
• 8 MALAYSIA Alex Yoong 19 30:59.418
• 9 CANADA 19 31:00.468
• 10 ITALY 19 31:02.402
  11 AUSTRALIA 19 31:03.008
  12 PAKISTAN 19 31:10.694
  13 RUSSIA 19 31:11.600
  14 NEW ZEALAND 19 31:12.646
  15 USA 19 31:22.492
  16 CHINA 19 31:23.701
  17 INDIA 19 31:25.335
  18 JAPAN 18 29:51.428
  19 AUSTRIA 18 29:51.690
• DNF
  20 LEBANON 11 20:27.284
  21 SOUTH AFRICA 8 16:34.442
  22 MEXICO 3 6:08.176
  23 GERMANY 3 6:08.645
  24 CZECH REP 0 18 Laps

TEAM FRANCE RACE REPORT:

• After the fourth round of the new A1 Grand Prix Series, Team A1 France has cemented its position at the top of the Championship with 71 points. Today the team has scored their sixth consecutive win of the season. A perfect day for A1 Team France, in the fourth round of the new A1 Grand Prix Series where Nicolas Lapierre managed to clinch again with a pair of dominant victories.
• In the morning, France was in fourth position at the warm-up: "During the whole weekend, we have had a very good car. This morning, we had a lot of fuel on-board during the warm up. The sprint race is very important because this is where you take the position for the feature race" said Lapierre. In an action packed feature race Nicolas Lapierre took advantage of the pace car restarts and brought his car again across the finish line comfortably ahead of second place Robbie Kerr (GBR).
• Nicolas Lapierre: "A perfect weekend for us. The car was fast from the first lap onwards and we didn't have to make a lot of changes. At the start, I had to watch out a bit of the cars behind me in the feature race. I saw Alvaro Parente pass me, and did not know where he was coming from. Later, the team told me he had a "stop and go" penalty for jumping the start. We had an excellent strategy. After the perfect pit stop I was able to push again. I'm proud of my team who did a one- hundred-percent job the whole weekend. I think that we showed again a fantastic performance. This is great team-work. I had to win because of Alex's performance last race. Now it will be his turn again to act in Malaysia. Six wins is really excellent for A1 France."
• Jean-Paul Driot, team manager of A1 Team France, added: "I really can't say a lot more.A1 Team France has now 71 points. The team made no mistakes from start to finish. A perfect day."
• After the fourth round of the new A1 Grand Prix Series, Team A1 France is ranking in first place of the Championship with 71 points. Today the team have scored their sixth consecutive win. Drivers Nicolas Lapierre and Alexandre Premat are two highly talented youngsters taking turns at the wheel. The next round will be staged at Sepang (Kuala Lumpur) on November 20, where Premat is the nominated driver.

TEAM AUSTRALIA RACE REPORT:

• Will Davison guided A1 Team Australia's Foster's sponsored car to a superb sixth position today in the fourth round of the A1 Grand Prix series at Sydney's Eastern Creek International Raceway. Whilst not scoring the podium result he came into the weekend confident of, the 23 year old was satisfied with the result - A1 Team Australia garnering five points towards their World Cup of Motorsport tally, now sitting in seventh place on 26 points.
• "It was a very enjoyable race. We set some high goals coming into this event - we wanted to finish on the podium. We didn't quite do that, but we achieved a fantastic result in front of a huge home crowd." Davison had to withstand a challenge from Portugal's Alvaro Parente, his sparring partner from the previous round in Parente's home country. "We got one back on him there actually," laughed Davison. "I was wary that he was behind me, particularly in the late stages of the race. He was desperate to get past today, but I wasn't going to let him. He got past me in Portugal late in the race and there was no way that it was happening again!"
• Davison was right on the gearbox of A1 Team Malaysia's Alex Yoong for the majority of the race, after an aggressive opening lap move on Jos Verstappen in the Netherlands entry and the Mexican positioned him well into the top ten, but was unable to make the crucial pass on Yoong and move into the top five.
• Team boss, Alan Jones, was happy with the result, especially in front of a huge crowd of 51,000 that visited the Western Sydney venue over the three days of the event. "I'm happy, for sure," said Jones. "Will did a great job. The racing was very tough, there was a lot going on out on the track and he kept his nose clean and brought it home."
• Attention for A1 Team Australia now switches to the sensational Sepang Circuit just outside Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, where Jones is hoping for yet more points in two weeks time. "We've got to do something to peg the French back!" AJ quipped. "They've got their act together well and are obviously the benchmark at the moment. We have a few ideas as to what we will do in Malaysia, but we won't know until we get there.
• Jones went on to confirm that the Eastern Creek driving team of Will Davison and Christian Jones will remain.

TEAM MALAYSIA RACE REPORT:

• Malaysia 5th in Australian Feature Race and Alex achieved his country's best results over a A1GP race weekend.
• The 40 lap Feature race was reduced to 35 laps as the maximum one hour of racing was applied when three safety car periods prolonged the race time period with a number of incidents from various teams as Malaysia recorded the country's best weekend result by Alex Yoong with a fifth in this race following an eighth in the Sprint race earlier.
• A spectacular and potentially very serious accident involving Japan's driver Hayanari Shimoda sent shivers down the spines of millions watching the race from the comfort of their homes. But thankfully, he was pronounced OK although somewhat suffering from concussion and a huge headache. The A1GP car was broken into two parts following the mega shunt onto the barriers.
• Earlier, Alex starting from eighth on the grid, when interviewed by the start-grid TV predicted that, "A top 5 is within the team's capability this weekend...lets wait and see...". True to his words he drove steadfastedly following another good start to make true his promise for the Malaysian fans at home ahead of his country's home round in two weeks time.
• France consolidated their championship lead with yet another win followed by Great Britain and Switzerland.
• Malaysia moves up to 10th in the championship after collecting 6 points in the Feature race's fifth to add to the 3 points from the Sprint race earlier. The next highest Asian nation is Japan in 16th position of 25 nations with 6 points.
• The next round will be held at Malaysia's home track, Sepang International circuit on the 18th to 20th of November 2005.

TEAM LEBANON RACE REPORT:

• STRONG FINISH FOR A1 TEAM LEBANON AT A1 GRAND PRIX OF NATIONS, AUSTRALIA
• A1 Team Lebanon led during the Feature race and finished 12th at the end of an incident-packed hour of wheel-to-wheel racing, which followed a 20th place finish in the earlier 20 lap Sprint race. The team competed in front of a supportive crowd with Lebanese flags waving throughout the spectator areas. In the Sprint race Shaaban made a clean start, moving forward and benefiting from first corner tangles of front runners, to take 17th place at the end of the first lap. Losing a couple of places on the restart, Shaaban ran in 19th spot, dropping to 20th after contact with South Africa as the two nations fought for position. Rear suspension damage sustained in this incident made the car difficult for Shaaban to continue driving, and with a 20th place grid slot guaranteed, the team opted to retire from the race and allow maximum time for repairing the car before the main Feature race. Shaaban made a flying start from the grid in the Feature race, making up six places to lie 14th at the end of the first lap. With rival teams opting for early pitstops, Lebanon moved up the field over the next few laps until, after all other cars having pitted, A1 Team Lebanon led the race. A safety car period resulted in Shaaban leading the field for three laps behind a pace car, with his tyres cooling quickly. As the grid returned to green flag racing, Shaaban took the restart well, but his used tyres were no match against his rivals who all had new tyres after their mandatory pit stops. Shaaban pitted after 17 laps, which pushed him back down the field, to lie 19th . The incident-packed race saw many more experienced drivers tangling, which Shaaban avoided, improving his position as the race reached half distance, lying 14th when the safety car was deployed for the fourth time. As the one hour time limit approached, the pack was released and Shaaban grasped the chance, overtaking rival team India to move into 13th and inheriting 12th place finish when Ireland lost places for a rules infringement. Shaaban commented, “We made some changes to help on the restarts, which made the car a bit difficult to drive when the pace was on. We tried to stay out of trouble, we were leading for a while which was very exciting and gave me the experience of setting the pace and taking the restart from the front. The crew did a very quick pitstop for me and we were able to rejoin the race at a good pace and at the final restart I passed India to make another place.” “Basil drove well today” said A1 Team Lebanon seat holder, Tameem Auchi, who attends each A1 Grand Prix race weekend. “He kept his head, avoided the many accidents and brought the A1 Team Lebanon car home in a respectable finish position. Basil handled the responsibility of leading the race with maturity and a calm approach, allowing the faster, more experienced drivers to pass, but racing hard with them as well. We’re still chasing our first top ten finish, but we hope we’re nearing this goal as we gain more experience each weekend. I would also like to thank the Lebanese community in Australia for the support that they gave us during our time in Sydney. We look forward to seeing them again next year! ”

QUALIFYING, SAT, NOV 5, 2005

• 1 FRA Nicholas Lapierre
• 2 POR Alvaro Parente +0.490
• 3 SUI Neel Jani +0.600
• 4 BRA Nelson Piquet +1.046
• 5 GB Robbie Kerr +1.086
• 6 IRE Michael Devaney +1.591
• 7 CAN Sean McIntosh
• 8 NED Jos Verstappen
• 9 MAL Alex Yoong
• 10 MEX Salvador Duran
• 11 ITA Enrico Toccacelo 12 GER Adrian Sutil 13 AUS Will Davison
  14 NZL Jonny Reid 15 RSA Stephen Simpson 16 CZE Tomas Enge
  17 PAK Adam Khan 18 RUS Roman Rusinov 19 JAP Hayanari Shimoda
  20 CHN Tengyi Jiang 21 LIB Basil Shaaban 22 USABryan Herta
  23 AUT Mathias Lauda 24 IND Armaan Ebrahim

TEAM AUSTRALIA REPORT: QUALIFYING

• A1 Team Australia are optimistic of securing a good result in tomorrow's fourth round of The World Cup of Motorsport at Sydney's Eastern Creek International Raceway, after a qualifying session that left the team slightly frustrated.
• With new tyres bolted to the Foster's liveried Australian car, Davison was confident of a top result, however he rued the change they made from this morning's first practice session - where Davison sat atop the time sheets for much of the one hour session.
• "It was a missed opportunity, I guess you could say. We changed something on the car before going out in the first session and it was just hopeless," Davison said.
• Having changed back to the setup used in morning practice, Davison was able to set his quickest time in segment three, a 1:19.445.
• "Had we left the car from this morning, I'm confident that we could have been well into the top ten on aggregate. I believe we could have ended up around eighth on aggregate judging by the pace of the car."
• Davison will start from mid-pack - 13th - in tomorrow's first race.
• Seat Holder Alan Jones is optimistic about the team's chances tomorrow.
• "We proved in Portugal that we can turn a poor qualifying position into a decent swag of points. Unlike qualifying in Portugal, we're a little further up the order so hopefully will not get caught up in the inevitable opening lap fracas'," the 1980 Formula One World Champion said.
• "We've worked hard on getting a setup on the car and Will's pace this morning would indicate that we've found something that works, the key for us is to keep our nose clean in the early stages and push through the middle stages of the race.
• "Practice has indicated that the fans are in for an awesome race that I believe will be punctuated with a number of Safety Cars and I predict that we will see the lap record lowered even further - possibly into the 17s," Jones said, reflecting on (A1 Team France's) Nicolas Lapierre's fastest lap in qualifying of 1:18.150.
• "Above all, I'm confident we can put on a good show for Foster's and the fans of A1 Team Australia on our home track and come away with some points towards our World Cup of Motorsport tally."

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