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Team SA a 'fighting fifth' in Malaysia

25 November 2008

Team South Africa, with Adrian Zaugg at the wheel of Vulindlela, bounced back from a disappointing showing in qualifying to finish a fighting fifth in the feature race in the third round of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport in Malaysia on the weekend.

It was an impressive performance by Zaugg, who began the race in sixteenth place, near the back of the field.

Ireland became the first two-time winner this season when Adam Carroll took a commanding victory in the 70-minute 34-lap race ahead of Portugal (Filipe Albuquerque), USA (Marco Andretti), Australia (John Martin) and South Africa.

Five-place improvement

At the end of the first lap of the feature race South Africa was already up five places to eleventh, behind China and ahead of Australia.

Zaugg was in determined mood, and by lap five had made the biggest gains of any driver in the field by moving up eight places to eighth.

Team South Africa was one of the last to pit for the first of the two mandatory tyre changes, and the tactic worked as Zaugg moved back ahead of Australia.

By lap 15, Zaugg was up to fifth, behind the USA and ahead of Australia. When Malaysia dropped out of third place after a misunderstanding about a pit stop, Zaugg was just outside a podium position, in fourth behind Ireland, Portugal and the USA, as the race approached the halfway point.

Pit stop

However, Australia had a better second pit stop than South Africa, which relegated Zaugg to fifth. At that stage, the three great southern hemisphere rugby-playing nations of Australia, South Africa and New Zealand were running in a three-car train in fourth, fifth and sixth places. They went on to finish in that order, with Zaugg making a last-minute effort to overtake Australia and closing the gap to four-tenths of a second at the chequered flag.

"Adrian had a great feature race and gained the most places of any of the drivers in the field," said Mike Carroll, general manager of A1 Team South Africa.

"It was a good result for the team when it really counted. You could see Adrian was trying really hard by the clouds of dust from the carbon fibre disc brakes every time he braked."

Zaugg was please to have scored some points. "It was great to get a good result in the feature race after our problems in qualifying," he said.

'I enjoyed the fight'

"I enjoyed the fight very much and making up so many places during the race. I was putting in a big effort and the front brakes were starting to fade towards the end. Fortunately I had enough PowerBoosts to protect my position from New Zealand, but I just couldn’t manage to catch Australia at the finish."

In the earlier sprint race, (Neel Jani) became the fifth different winner in five races of the shorter event. It was reigning champions Switzerland's third successive sprint race victory in Malaysia. France (Loic Duval) was second ahead of New Zealand (Earl Bamber).

South Africa finished ninth and one position out of the points after improving from 11th on the grid.

Contact

Zaugg survived an incident with Malaysia's Fairuz Fauzy on lap two, which saw the two cars make contact as Zaugg attempted to repass Fauzy following a successful overtaking manoeuvre by the Malaysian at the end of the pit straight on lap one. The South African made the move stick and Fauzy was forced into the pits with a flat tyre.

South Africa was up to eighth and in the points when the cars came in for the mandatory pit stop, but a quicker pit stop by Australia saw the Aussies demote Zaugg to ninth.

SPRINT RACE RESULTS

1. Switzerland, Neel Jani
2. France, Loïc Duval
3. New Zealand, Earl Bamber
4. Portugal, Filipe Albuquerque
5. Ireland, Adam Carroll
6. Netherlands, Jeroen Bleekemolen
7. Italy, Edoardo Piscopo
8. Australia, John Martin
9. South Africa, Adrian Zaugg
10. China, Ho-Pin Tung
11. Lebanon, Daniel Morad
12. Monaco, Clivio Piccione
13. Indonesia, Satrio Hermanto
14. Mexico, David Garza
15. Malaysia, Fairuz Fauzy
16. Great Britain, Danny Watts
17. Brazil, Felipe Guimarães
18. India, Narain Karthikeyan
19. USA, Marco Andretti
20. Korea, Jin-Woo Hwang

FEATURE RACE RESULTS

1. Ireland, Adam Carroll
2. Portugal, Filipe Albuquerque
3. USA, Marco Andretti
4. Australia, John Martin
5. South Africa, Adrian Zaugg
6. New Zealand, Earl Bamber
7. Brazil, Felipe Guimarães
8. Netherlands, Jeroen Bleekemolen
9. China, Ho-Pin Tung
10. Malaysia, Fairuz Fauzy
11. Italy, Edoardo Piscopo
12. Lebanon, Daniel Morad
13. Indonesia, Satrio Hermanto
14. France, Loïc Duval
15. Mexico, David Garza
16. Great Britain, Danny Watts
17. Monaco, Clivio Piccione
18. India, Narain Karthikeyan
19. Switzerland, Neel Jani

CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS

(After three rounds of 10)

1. Ireland - 43
2. Portugal - 35
3. France and New Zealand - 31
4. Malaysia - 29
5. Switzerland - 28
6. Netherlands - 26
7. Australia - 22
8. Great Britain and USA - 16
9. South Africa - 15
10. Monaco - 9

Next round: A1GP Taupo, New Zealand 23-25 January 2009.

Source: A1 GP: The World Cup of Motorsport