Taupo weekend thread

[Burnsie]

Two pole positions... couldn't ask for more than that!

[RichardRenes]

"It's the sunday that counts" (my favorite Jan Lammers quote)

I hope all Ireland will see in their mirrors is green, which would mean Portugal is right behind him Us Dutch will be in front :P

[Kiwi3]

I am out of touch this weekend, missed qualifying as I was on a plane. :-( At least there is a replay at 4.30am on Wednesday...

Any idea of tomorrow will be a procession like the last two years at Taupo or will there be more overtaking with the new car? I read somewhere the powerboost is now 60bhp instead of 30 which might make it easier?

[strider]

Qualifying results below for anyone interested. Now I'm definitely supporting Adam Carroll. What's happened to Cheng Cong Fu?

Sprint race:

Pos  Driver               Team           Time      Gap
 1.  Adam Carroll         Ireland        1:14.507
 2.  Robert Doornbos      Netherlands    1:14.772  + 0.265
 3.  Filipe Albuquerque   Portugal       1:14.788  + 0.281
 4.  Neel Jani            Switzerland    1:15.202  + 0.695
 5.  Loic Duval           France         1:15.360  + 0.853
 6.  Chris van der Drift  New Zealand    1:15.457  + 0.950
 7.  John Martin          Australia      1:15.504  + 0.997
 8.  Edoardo Piscopo      Italy          1:15.614  + 1.107
 9.  Fairuz Fauzy         Malaysia       1:15.710  + 1.203
10.  Daniel Morad         Lebanon        1:15.839  + 1.332
11.  Adrian Zaugg         South Africa   1:15.917  + 1.410
12.  Salvador Duran       Mexico         1:15.972  + 1.465
13.  Felipe Guimaraes     Brazil         1:16.074  + 1.567
14.  Narain Karthikeyan   India          1:16.146  + 1.639
15.  Dan Clarke           Great Britain  1:16.347  + 1.840
16.  Clivio Piccione      Monaco         1:16.424  + 1.917
17.  Marco Andretti       USA            1:16.791  + 2.284
18.  Cheng Cong Fu        China          1:16.885  + 2.378
19.  Satrio Hermanto      Indonesia      1:17.266  + 2.759

Feature race:

Pos  Driver               Team           Time      Gap
 1.  Adam Carroll         Ireland        1:14.411
 2.  Robert Doornbos      Netherlands    1:14.676  + 0.265
 3.  Filipe Albuquerque   Portugal       1:14.843  + 0.432
 4.  John Martin          Australia      1:14.976  + 0.565
 5.  Neel Jani            Switzerland    1:15.043  + 0.632
 6.  Fairuz Fauzy         Malaysia       1:15.246  + 0.835
 7.  Loic Duval           France         1:15.423  + 1.012
 8.  Marco Andretti       USA            1:15.527  + 1.116
 9.  Daniel Morad         Lebanon        1:15.587  + 1.176
10.  Chris van der Drift  New Zealand    1:15.622  + 1.211
11.  Narain Karthikeyan   India          1:15.699  + 1.288
12.  Felipe Guimaraes     Brazil         1:15.812  + 1.401
13.  Salvador Duran       Mexico         1:15.892  + 1.481
14.  Dan Clarke           Great Britain  1:15.902  + 1.491
15.  Edoardo Piscopo      Italy          1:15.942  + 1.531
16.  Adrian Zaugg         South Africa   1:16.164  + 1.753
17.  Clivio Piccione      Monaco         1:16.735  + 2.324
18.  Satrio Hermanto      Indonesia      1:16.783  + 2.372
19.  Cheng Cong Fu        China          1:17.184  + 2.773

[jackschmidt]

Originally Posted by strider

Qualifying results below for anyone interested. Now I'm definitely supporting Adam Carroll. What's happened to Cheng Cong Fu?

It's Cong Fu Cheng's first time in the car. That explains a lot of things.

[Stefvh]

Why is not the 1st race broadcasted live ?

It'd have been at 23.00 here.

[Tyrrell]

The Sprint Race is not broadcasted live due to constraints on the time broadcasters can give to A1GP.

Assuming no problems with Safety Cars or worse, red flags, even if we ran the Sprint immediately before the Feature race we'd still be looking at live programmes running for at least 3 hours which is too long for many. With the best will in the world, each broadcaster has only so much time that it can devote to A1GP.

Both races were shown live in season 1 and it did cause programming issues when races ran over. Remember the time A1 Team Japan crashed on the Safety Car laps in Indonesia?

The change for season 2 when the Sprint race was run earlier (and shown 'as live') has helped enormously (the race is longer too). Sky Sports in the UK show the Sprint race in its entirety. The viewer misses none of the action and unless they choose to go on-line and peek at the result beforehand, they won't know how the race panned out until they watch the broadcast.

I accept that the most avid A1GP fans will want all the action live, but the way the broadcast works now is I think a very good compromise between entertaining the fans and keeping the television networks on-side. The more
network friendly A1GP is the stronger the probability of more broadcasters wanting to show it.

[kerrmanningjarv]

It's Cong Fu Cheng's first time in the car. That explains a lot of things.

Cheng did 1 day of testing at a wet Silverstone in October, but that's it... he has struggled for this weekend, and at the moment it unfortunately looks like China has taken a bit of a step backwards from last season.

[kerrmanningjarv]

Dan didn't do too well I'm afraid - GBR's blues down under continue (we never do well in NZL or AUS).

Still a small chance of points but it was a very disappointing Saturday for us .

[Thundersports]

Which lap in the feature race will Dan Clarke crash?

[Charlies]

Originally Posted by Thundersports

Which lap in the feature race will Dan Clarke crash?

Ah, an optimist. Who says the car can be repaired in time for the feature race?

[strider]

Anyone who does not want to know the result of the sprint race because they prefer to see the action unfold on TV whenever should read no further .

Anyone who does want to know should follow this link.

In order not to make this post a spoiler, I shall make no further comment.

[strider]

The feature race is now in progress and live timing is available here if you're interested.

[jackschmidt]

Wow. Entertaining race for sure. Who would have known the luck Adam would have in the race?

[Kiwi3]

I thought there was always something happening to keep viewers interested but I still don't like Taupo as an A1GP circuit. Too narrow and too difficult to overtake to have good racing. At least that is the most dull circuit of the season now out of the way.

[strider]

Originally Posted by jackschmidt

Wow. Entertaining race for sure. Who would have known the luck Adam would have in the race?

If you mean the delay getting going after his pitstop, Doorbos had the the same problem in the sprint race and Jani didn't get away properly after his first stop in the feature race.

It must be a fault with the electrical system/ECU, so Magneti Marelli need to get that sorted out for Ferrrari. It shouldn't be too difficult.

[diabloA1]

It would likely just require software re program. According to Neel Jani the problem occured partly because the Taupo pit lane is grippy, the use of the speed limiter, and the tendency for drivers to rev and dump the clutch. Unlike other drivers he recognized the problem and didn't 'dump' the clutch in the 2nd pitstop and it worked fine.

I also noticed that on the starting grid drivers rev the engine all the way to 8,000rpm and then let out the clutch. In sufficent revs together with letting out the clutch too quickly will likely activate the anti stall which drivers have complained about.

The AP Racing clutch probably cannot handle too many launches this way I suspect.

[diabloA1]

Also read the Team Malaysia newsletter report. Fauzy ran the whole Feature race with a hot engine due to radiator damage. His engine lacked power and he lost time on the straights. He braked really late into corners to try and gain some time. According to the soundbite found in their Fanzone page, Fauzy was worried during the safety car period because temps were above 100 deg C. Probably lucky to cross teh finish line

[RichardRenes]

In all, the car ain't bulletproof yet. Then again, the previous car had it's problems too in season 1.

[Thundersports]

Originally Posted by Charlies

Ah, an optimist. Who says the car can be repaired in time for the feature race?

Well he didn't let us down in the feature race although he failed to hit anything/anyone!

[Armco Bender]

Just to show I was there yesterday.....

The winner....which was interesting as the Swiss car was trailing blue smoke for about the last 10 laps,and he also flat spotted the right front in the same corner on the last safety car restart...


Aeroplane on the track


And an interesting shot of the grandstand at the start of the sprint race...plenty of empty seats to spread out over... Why was there another major meeting at Pukekohe on the same day as the A1?..


Nothing wrong with Taupo as a race track,theres plenty of passing in the support races,the problem with the A1 cars is they just aren't close enough to each other to pass.And the driver ability goes from future champion down to extremely woeful,with a lot of the drivers being the latter.

[Kiwi3]

Which drivers do you believe a woeful?

Did the stands fill up a bit more for the feature race or just as empty?

[Armco Bender]

A few more seats filled up for the feature,but still no more than about half full,I suspect a lot of people who came in for the feature race were from the pits,as once your in there was no one checking you actually had a grandstand ticket.

Woeful...China,Brasil,Monaco,Indonesia,Lebanon.
Disappointing....NZ,GB,Netherlands,South Africa,France.
Driver of the race...Portugal
Driver with biggest reputation that wont get an F1 drive..Marco Andretti

[Kiwi3]

Friends of mine who have spend time in Indianapolis reckon it's generally accepted over there that Marco is not very good (albeit better than Danica).

Shame about the poor crowd, especially since Colin Giltrap has always been one of A1GP's biggest supporters. Maybe Surfers will also give A1GP an image boost in NZ

[TR7V8]

I've never been an Andretti fan but it didn't stop me having my photo taken with him.




I have 1000 photos to sort out & some videos that are going up on Youtube as I get time. Search on my user id 'uskiwis' + A1GP.

I spoke to a couple of the mechanics & there are a few problems with the cars. The anti-stall glitch being major. Apparantly they have not been able to fix it so Neel will have to give lessons on how to deal with it. He reckons it's avoided by slipping the clutch but I saw cars bogging down while trying to exit the pits all the time in practice so I don't think it is that easy. The other issue is the lack of speed. The car was 2-3 seconds slower than last year all during practice & only started to get close to the times of the old cars in the 2nd half of the race. We were told this would be a faster car & yes the top speed is fractionally higher on the long straight but they were losing time in the twisty sectors. Ferrari have sold A1GP a lemon.

By the way, the cup tastes like chicken!