Full Throttle

Neel Jani has taken Switzerland’s first pole position of the season after qualifying for the Malaysian A1 Grand Prix at Sepang.

The 22-year-old, who pulled off the same feat at the 5.5-km circuit last year, set the fastest time in two of the four 15 minute-long sessions to edge ahead of New Zealand’s Jonny Reid.

“This was more or less my first qualifying of the year because of what happened in Beijing, so to get pole position is very nice,” Jani said.

Such was Team Switzerland’s confidence that, following a red flag caused when Lebanon’s Khalil Beschir stopped out on track, they did not send Jani out for the final session.

“I had two very good laps already, so I didn’t think there was any sense to go out again, also the sky looked dark and we even thought it might rain,” he continued. “I was just worried if Jonny went out again as he was very close to me, but he didn’t so I was happy about that.”

After going third quickest in session one, Reid topped the timesheet in session two. But, with the aim of conserving tires, he set only the 11^th quickest time in session three, before sitting out the fourth session entirely.

Reid’s performance saw him line up ahead of German teenager Nico Hulkenburg for Sunday’s sprint race, with Great Britain’s Robbie Kerr - back in the cockpit for the first time since Brno - fourth on the grid.

With falling rain at the outset of qualifying forcing the majority of runners to set a time before the track became too slippery, the resulting traffic saw Hulkenburg hit Ireland’s Michael Devaney.

While Hulkenburg went on to set the second fastest time of the session behind Jani, the resulting damage to the right rear of his car forced Devaney - who eventually qualified 13th - to sit the session out.

“We were both on a quick lap so after the first corner he was really far on the outside and I thought that he wanted to let me past, but then at the end he didn’t and then we crashed” Hulkenburg claimed.

“It was just a very slight hit and nothing was damaged.”

Alex Yoong qualified seventh for his home race, while Australia will start 17th after Ryan Briscoe ran wide in session three, the resulting trip into the gravel tearing off his front wing and causing suspenion damage.

A1 Grand Prix of Nations round four, Sepang, Malaysia

Leading Positions after Final Qualifying: 1 Switzerland (Neel Jani) 3mins 43.014secs, 2 New Zealand (Jonny Reid) 3:43.305, 3 Germany (Nico Hulkenberg) 3:43.381, 4 Great Britain (Robbie Kerr) 3:43.941, 5 China (Cheng Congfu) 3:44.884, 6 Netherlands (Jeroen Bleekemolen) 3:44.932, 7 Malaysia (Alex Yoong) 3:45.068, 8 South Africa (Adrian Zaugg) 3:45.238, 9 Canada (Sean McIntosh) 3:45.352, 10 France (Nicolas Lapierre) 3:45.410, 11 USA (Philip Giebler) 3:45.843, 12 Mexico (Salvador Duran) 3:46.155, 13 Ireland (Michael Devaney) 3:46.220, 14 Czech Republic (Tomas Enge) 3:46.407, 15 Brazil (Raphael Matos) 3:46.745, 16 Singapore (Christian Murchison) 3:47.194, 17 Australia (Ryan Briscoe) 3:47.711, 18 Indonesia (Ananda Mikola) 3:48.249, 19 India (Armaan Ebrahim) 3:48.388, 20 Italy (Enrico Toccacelo) 3:49.175, 21 Lebanon (Khalil Beschir) 3:50.137, 22 Pakistan (Nur Ali) 3:59.081

Cross posted @ Asian Motor Sports

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