In a race weekend worthy of the fantastic new racing facilities on the holiday resort of the Algarve in Portugal, Robert Doornbos managed to take his first ever A1GP win in the sprint while Neel Jani managed to put to bed a disastrous sprint race qualifying session to win the feature race. But the big winners of the weekend were Ireland and their driver Adam Carroll, they ended up as the weekend's top scorers with 22 points after 2 second place finishes coupled with fastest laps in both races, this has allowed Ireland to retake the lead in the world cup of motorsport by 4 points from the Swiss and 12 ahead of the Portugese, despite the resurgence of the Dutch in winning 3 races so far, it looks like being a 3 horse race for this year's championship. It was yet another disappointing weekend though for Great Britain despite the inexperienced Dan Clarke (replacing the ineligible Danny Watts) taking his first points finish of the season giving the team 4 points that keeps them in the top 10, not the morale boost that was needed after the team were put into administration recently putting their future in the series into serious doubt.SPRINT RACE
GRID
ROW 1: 1. Vitantonio Liuzzi (Italy), 2. Robert Doornbos (Netherlands0
ROW 2: 3. Adam Carroll (Ireland), 4. Daniel Morad (Lebanon)
ROW 3: 5. Filipe Albuquerque (Portugal), 6. Earl Bamber (New Zealand)
ROW 4: 7. Andre Lotterer (Germany), 8. Adrian Zaugg (South Africa)
ROW 5: 9. Narain Karthikeyan (India), 10. Cilvio Piccione (Monaco)
ROW 6: 11. Fairuz Fauzy (Malaysia), 12. Marco Andretti (USA)
ROW 7: 13. Dan Clarke (Great Britain0, 14. Felipe Guimaraes (Brazil)
ROW 8: 15. Zahir Ali (Indonesia), 16. Salvador Duran (Mexico)
ROW 9: 17. John Martin (Australia), 18. Nicolas Prost (France)
ROW 10: 19. Ho-Pin Tung (China), 20. Neel Jani (Switzerland)
Debutant Vitantonio Liuzzi (test driver for the Force India F1 squad) shocked everyone by taking pole position for the sprint race while championship leaders Switzerland suffered badly after an electrical failure forced them to end their session early and with no time set, they were stone dead last on the grid.
At the start, Luizzi made a mess of it as he was jumped at the start by Doornbos and then passed by both Carroll and Albuquerque at the mandatory pitstop. Doornbos was never headed in a dominant performance. The race however was ended early on lap 11 out of 14 after a crash involving Zaugg and Guimaraes, the Brazilian in the end was classified 7th behind Karthikeyan and Piccione and ahead of Jani who drove superbly through the field to claim a point for 8th place, but he was given a stop-go penalty and as it was too late to take the penalty, Jani was given a half minute penalty added to his time dropping him to 15th, this handed the final point to Fairuz Fauzy. With Carroll taking 2nd spot and the fastest lap, this meant that Ireland would take the lead in the standings by 6 points.
FEATURE RACE
GRID
ROW 1: 1. Adam Carroll (Ireland), 2. Neel Jani (Switzerland)
ROW 2: 3. Adrian Zaugg (South Africa), 4. Fairuz Fauzy (Malaysia)
ROW 3: 5. Filipe Albuquerque (Portugal), 6. Marco Andretti (USA)
ROW 4: 7. Cilvio Piccione (Monaco), 8. Vitantonio Liuzzi (Italy)
ROW 5: 9. Earl Bamber (New Zealand), 10. John Martin (Australia)
ROW 6: 11. Salvador Duran (Mexico), 12. Andre Lotterer (Germany)
ROW 7: 13. Daniel Morad (Lebanon), 14. Dan Clarke (Great Britain)
ROW 8: 15. Narain Karthikeyan (India), 16. Zahir Ali (Indonesia)
ROW 9: 17. Nicolas Prost (France), 18. Ho-Pin Tung (China)
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DID NOT START: Robert Doornbos (Netherlands), Felipe Guimaraes (Brazil)
Only 19 cars lined up for the 43 lap Feature race after damage to the Brazil car was too much to allow Emerson Fittipaldi's team to continue, the field was then reduced further to just 18 after the polesitter and race 1 winner Robert Doornbos suffered electrical failure on the warm up lap. This meant that when the race started, the 2 championship leaders would share the front row. Carroll led away but unfairly as he was adjudged to ahve jumped the start for which he was given a drive through penalty, from that Neel Jani took the lead.
He held the lead after the first round of pitstops where Carroll after his drive through penalty was last, Jani led from Zaugg, Bamber, and Albuquerque, and thats how the top 4 stayed until lap 15 when an increasingly impatient Bamber attempted to overtake the slow Zaugg and ended up crashing into the back of the South African driver eliminating both men and bringing out the safety car, promoting Albuquerque to 2nd, Liuzzi to 3rd, Andretti up to 4th and the impressive Salvador Duran up to 5th, Carroll at this point had managed to fight his way up to 10th spot.
From the restart, the home fans were sent into raptures as Albuquerque timed his restart to perfection to overtake Jani and go into the lead but then the Safety car was brought out again just 4 laps later after a 3 car pileup involving Liuzzi, Andretti and Piccione after the Italian attempted to take advantage of Andretti spinning resulting to both cars colliding and going into the path of the innocent Piccione.
Albuquerque managed to hold off Jani at the restart in a field that now looked rather depleted with just 12 cars ahead of the race's biggest suprise Salvador Duran looking for Mexico's first points finish of the campaign, the situation though would change at the 2nd round of pitstops as Albuquerque pitted first, Jani put the hammer down on his in-lap, that and great pitwork was rewarded with a net race lead, Carroll pitted just after Albuquerque and after a lightnign stop emerged in a net 3rd spot, jumping up 3 places. But there was controversy to follow, Ireland were put under investigation for overtaking Australia's John Martin under the safety car, they were allowed to race on though.
Carroll managed to dispatch Albuquerque to take 2nd and then set about trying to eat away the 5 second lead that Jani had built up, after a series of fastest laps, Carroll had whittled it down to barely nothing in the space of 7 laps, Jani managed to defend valiantly though to take an important win. Albuquerque had a quiet end to the race to take 3rd ahead of Fauzy and a relieved Duran who took Mexico's 1st points of the season, Prost took a career best 6th spot ahead of Dan Clarke giving him his first points finish, Tung took 8th for China ahead of Lotterer who give Germany their first points, with 10th place and the final point going to Indonesia's Zahir Ali
The result may change though if Ireland are further penalised.
WORLD CUP OF MOTORSPORT TOP 12 AFTER ROUND 6: 1. Ireland 92pts, 2. Switzerland 88pts, 3. Portugal 80pts, 4. Netherlands 66pts, 5. France 46pts, 6. Malaysia 41pts, 7. New Zealand 36pts, 8. Australia 30pts, 9. Monaco 27pts, 10. Great Britain 24pts, =11. South Africa 19pts, =11. USA 19pts
DRIVERS TOP 12: 1. Adam Carroll 92pts, 2. Neel Jani 88pts, 3. Filipe Albuquerque 80pts, 4. Fairuz Fauzy 41pts, 5. Loic Duval 40pts, 6. Jeroen Bleekemolen 35pts, 7. Robert Doornbos 31pts, =8. John Martin 30pts, =8. Earl Bamber 30pts, 10. Cilvio Piccione 27pts, 11. Danny Watts 20pts, 12. Adrian Zaugg 19pts
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