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Team Germany Captures Rainy A1GP Debut

Photo: A1GP

USA Loses a Close One on the Zandvoort Dunes

“It was like driving on egg shells”–Philip Giebler

A capacity crowd of 75,000 fans looked on during fickle Dutch autumn weather as the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport’s second full season got under way with this weekend’s event at Zandvoort.

The Sunday feature race was won by A1 Team Germany, the country’s first-ever A1GP victory, just over seven seconds ahead of A1 Teams USA and Australia. A1 Team Netherlands finished its home race in 4th position.

The race began with pole-sitter Adrian Zaugg slow away from the line and falling back to fourth position at the first corner. The South African driver’s frustration continued as he went wide to avoid contact with Darren Manning of A1 Team Great Britain and ran straight into a gravel trap losing his front wing, and ending his day early.

Ready to take advanatage was Mexico’s Salvador Duran who leaped to the front of the field, with Nicolas Lapierre of France second, A1 Team Germany third and Great Britain fourth. Duran’s advantage was short-lived though as the Mexican ran wide coming into Tarzan on the second lap, allowing France into the lead. The following lap Germany, with rookie Nico Hulkenberg at the wheel, also squeezed past and relegated Mexico to third position.

With a clear track ahead Lapierre built on the lead and pulled out a three second advantage by the end of the third lap. The lead was negated on lap eight however when A1 Team Pakistan spun coming into the pit lane for a mandatory tire change. The safety car was deployed for two laps to allow the Pakistani car to be moved to a safer location.

Lapierre used the safety car period cleverly, bunching up the field into the last corner of the circuit before accelerating briskly down the straight. He punched the accelerator so hard that coming into Tarzan the French car already had a three second advantage.

The race took another twist on lap 14 when torrential rain started to fall on the racetrack. With water soon saturating the pavement and claps of thunder and lightning overhead, most of the field elected to change to full wet tires. A1 Team USA, with Philip Giebler behind the wheel, remained on slick tires, gambling that the weather would change and the track would dry out.

On lap 17 the capacity Dutch crowd went wild as the orange A1 Team Netherlands car, driven by Jeroen Bleekemolen, stormed past Great Britain on the outside of the first corner. Using his experience of the track to the full, Bleekemolen dived to the outside of Tarzan onto the banking, kept the line and made the move stick.

With the rain falling harder, A1 Team France came into the pits for rain tires. Still on slicks, the blue and red American car assumed the lead of the race, a position it held until lap 23.

Back on track now and running on full wets, A1 Team France carved into the USA’s lead and by the end of lap 23 the two cars were running nose to tail. It appeared the American gamble was not paying off as Lapierre squirmed past Giebler, followed by the Netherlands, Germany and Italy. The following lap the Swiss car also moved past.

As the competition continued, the rain cleared and a dry line emerged on the track. France returned to the pits for slick tires, followed by Great Britain, while the A1 Team Netherlands’ car remained on-track, inheriting the lead. Meanwhile, France’s Lapierre could not continue as mechanical failure on the following lap brought his challenge to a halt.

With just minutes remaining, A1 Team Netherlands made a daring decision to keep Bleekemolen out on wets. The USA’s gamble to stay on slicks now paid dividends as Giebler took more than five seconds from the Dutch lead. On lap 37, the American pushed past Bleekemolen and A1Team USA was back in the lead.

Behind them, Team Germany made steady progress through the field and rookie Hulkenberg soon found himself fighting with the Netherlands for second. Bleekemolen’s wet tires did not give enough grip on the dry circuit and Hulkenberg eventually inched past him on lap 36. With the USA just fractions of a second in front, the German made a daring move to capture the lead on the following lap.

The nineteen-year-old Hulkenberg was delighted to give A1 Team Germany their first-ever series victory. “I pushed hard and did my best throughout the race,” he said. “I didn’t think that I could win after my second stop and I didn’t realise what position I was - I thought I was around 10th, until my engineer radioed at told me I was P.1! It was a fantastic race and the changeable weather really added to the excitement, as we were all swapping between slicks and wet weather tires.”

A1 Team USA’s Phil Giebler congratulated his team’s daring strategy, which enabled him to secure the second spot on the podium.

“It was a difficult race with the weather and I have to thank my team for trusting my judgement to stay on slicks. It took some guts and a lot of luck but I knew that the track would dry up and the weather would blow over, so I just stuck with it,” he said. “It was like driving on egg shells at points and I was close to coming off a few times. I had a terrible start and lost many places but a good strategy brought me back on top. I’m hoping that we can compete at the top of the championship all season.”

Australian Ryan Briscoe also relished his third place, although expressed his apologies at denying the Netherlands their dream result on the final lap, “We’ve been struggling over the weekend with the car set up, but for the feature race we changed some things and it seemed to come together. It was tough with the weather conditions, and we were one of the first to put wets on, which was a bit of a gamble and we were lucky to get away with it. It was very exciting with all the pit stops and I have to thank the team as ours went very smoothly. My team told me that I was just behind Jeroen on the last lap and I was much faster than him, so I knew that I could take him. But when I looked out at the crowd and it was all orange, I felt bad about passing him on the last lap, but I had to do it

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