Sprintrace: France wins, bad luck for Jos Verstappen

Published on 09 October 2005 by Thorsten Hendriks

France has won the sprintrace in the second A1GP weekend, Jos Verstappen retired for Team Netherlands after a collision.

Nicolas Lapierre started from pole position but waited long before he hit the throttle. The whole grid compacted which meant that we had a chaotic situation in the first corner: Jos was hit from behind by Team Pakistan and retired even before the race even had properly started. He managed to get to the pits and the mechanics had a job and a half to do to have his car ready for the main race.

Jos doesn't have to start from the last position of the grid in the main race because Robbie Kerr (GBR) and Scott Speed (USA) retired in the first corner. Adam Kahn (PAK) keeps on driving with his damaged car and causes a safety car situation. Lapierre (FRA) is still in first position. There is a real fight for position 6 between Malaysia, Canada, Italy, Mexico, Japan en Ireland. Neel Jani (SWI) and Nelson Piquet (BRA) battle for second place. Timo Scheider (GER) and Jonny Reid (NZL) are trying for the places outside the podium.

It shows that some of the drivers have a lack of expreience. One example: when Khalil Beschir (LIB) tries to overtake Tenggji Yiang (CHN) in an impossible way and then the latter doesn't do anything to avoid a collision.

Nicolas Lapierre drives to victory without being hindered. Nelson Piquet (BRA) is not able to overtake Neel Jani (SWI), and this is how the podium looked. Piquet does manage to get the fastest lap: 1.34.735.

1      FRANCE         30:10.429
2      SWITZERLAND    30:12.442   +2.013   
3      BRAZIL         30:12.887   +2.458   
4      NEW ZEALAND    30:18.475   +8.046
5      GERMANY        30:19.280   +8.851
6      MALAYSIA       30:33.848   +23.419
7      CANADA         30:34.438   +24.009
8      ITALY          30:34.954   +24.525
9      MEXICO         30:35.838   +25.409
10     IRELAND        30:37.010   +26.581
11     JAPAN          30:38.271   +27.842
12     CZECH REPUBLIC 30:38.671   +28.242
13     SOUTH AFRICA   30:50.690   +40.261
14     AUSTRIA        30:51.436   +41.007
15     INDONESIA      30:53.064   +42.635
16     AUSTRALIA      30:53.885   +43.456
17     INDIA          30:54.308   +43.879
18     CHINA          30:26.611   2 Laps
19     LEBANON        13:24.382   11 Laps
20     PORTUGAL        7:30.261   15 Laps
21     PAKISTAN        3:24.087   16 Laps
22     NETHERLANDS     4:27.020   17 Laps

Thorsten Hendriks