A1GP team Germany win again in Australia Monday, February 05, 2007 12:42 [IST]
London: A1GP team Germany
won their fourth feature race of the season as Nico Hulkenberg dominated events
in Sydney Australia over the weekend with Team New Zealand
coming in a close second.
Race winner Hulkenberg said,"It was a difficult race, maybe it didn't
look like it but when I was ahead of Jonny (Reid) after the pit stops he was
always just behind me so I could not make any mistakes. But what can I say, two
perfect weekends in a row, it is just I like the chair in the middle here at
the press conference too much."
New Zealand’s
Jonny Reid said,"I pushed and pushed but we had nothing left as the car
was not so good in the race. There is another small change that we could work
on to fix that for next time, but once you are out there you are battling with
the race car and that is what you have got."
However, the surprise of the race was Team China who secured their first
ever podium finish at an A1GP event, finishing the Sydney Feature race in third
place - narrowly squeezing out fourth placed team Netherlands.
China’s Ho-Pin Tung, provided a sensational overtaking manoeuvre on the
bright orange car of Team Netherlands on lap 22 that finally secured China’s
podium finish, taking them on the outside of turn one in front of the packed
out grandstands.
"I have just seen Steven our press manager cheering on the phone and
screaming, so I think probably it will be a really big thing in China. I think
on the TV maybe it looked a bit braver when I overtook the Netherlands
than it was in reality," he said afterwards.
"I just had a very good tow down the main straight and I overtook him
on the outside. I used my PowerBoost to get a really good tow, moved to the
outside and could carry more speed into the corner where he had to lift as he
had to defend his position."
The race was not without further incident and drama however, as drivers
jostled for position a collision between Canada and Singapore saw both cars
leave the track with the Canadian car barrel-rolling and landed upside down in
the dirt at turn four, fortunately, James Hinchcliffe was able to walk away
unhurt.
Team South Africa ran
over the back of Pakistan,
spinning into the dirt at turn eight taking both cars out of the race.
Yet another collision saw the Irish team tag the Swiss, pushing the car off
the track and into the pit lane.
After seven races Team Germany
currently head up the leader board with New
Zealand and France some way off but still in
touch with another four races remaining.
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