A1GP Comes to Taupo

For the first time A1GP comes to Taupo Motorsport Park in New Zealand. We were lucky enough to go to the big event, and into  pit lane on the Thursday before the meeting. At this early stage of the week you could see these guys all came here to win. They were walking  the track to pick the  fastest lines, as the cars had not set foot out of pit lane yet. While drivers were doing that, teams were doing last minute checks and practising pitstops.

We saw 3 teams do pitstop checks on Thursday. Pakistan, USA and South Africa. First we saw South Africa, and they looked quick ,and only got better during the weekend. Then we walked down the pitlane to the Pakistan team who practised for about an hour (not that you would know it). They dropped the car twice onto the chassis and must have done some sort of damage to the undertray. The more they pracitced the worse they seemed to get. By now most of the teams had packed up and gone home, but as we walked back up the pitlane,.the American team came out and did 1 practise stop. It was so fast with no mistakes they decided they did'nt need to do anymore.

Friday was the first day we got to see and hear these amazing machines on the track with the rookie practice. You can not comprehend how loud these cars really are from TV. They sound awesome. Around Taupo these cars got down to 1m 14s per lap. If you compare that to the Thomson Motors Fiat Uno it is around 35s a lap faster than our best time.

Qualifying was a new experience with a new way to find the pole position. They do four 15 miunute sessions, where they drivers only get 1 hotlap in each session. They then take your best two lap times from the four sessions to get the grid position.

Finally the racing  we had all been waiting for since it was first announced that A1GP was coming to New Zealand. A1 Team New Zealand had quiaified 3rd and Jonny Reid was looking to impress in his home event. The lights went green and the crowd watched in excitment as the cars flew into the first corner. They all made it round the tight turn one, but things came to grief at the turn.We saw team Lebanon take out Singapore and ended both of there races. Jonny Reid was unable to pass team France to take second, dispite being alot quicker than them,
because it was just too tight for passing to take place with these cars as a slight touch would see the cars destroyed. Team Germany took the win in race 1 with a good gap back to France.

The Feature race was a standing start as opposed to the  rolling start in the sprint race. They also have to take a pitstop to change tires in this race. The cars all launched off the line Ok, and made it around the first lap with a couple of passing moves puting a couple of cars  in the grass and losing 3 places. Not long into the race teams began to make their pitstops and it then became harder to follow who was infront of the race. Team Germany came out on top again with an impressive margin over  team France and Black Beauty came third again a great result for
New Zealand putting us into 3rd postion in the championship with 43 points.

I hope to see these cars again next year hopfully With Team NZL on top.

 Here are some photos we took.