A1GP Dubai Preview
This may be A1Grand Prix’s biggest weekend since it’s September inaugural event at Silverstone Great Britain. It was a short 18 months ago A1GP founder Sheikh Maktoum announced the formation of the A1 Grand Prix of Nations at the opening of this weeks venue the Dubai Autodrome.
Dubai UAE being Maktoum’s home country and what can be considered as A1GP’s home as well he has taken the opportunity to announce his plans for the future.
For the Series’ second year there will be five new Franchises available expanding the current total of 24 to 30 participating countries in 2006/07. The UAE is expected to field one of the teams and training of six drivers for this team is already under way with plans for both a junior and a senior team.
The much speculated upon status of the Brazilian round of the A1GP series has been officially announced. Originally planned to be held at Curitiba on February 12 the event has been canceled as efforts to obtain the required F2 license from the FIA failed. There are still talks of Interlagos, a Formula One venue, assuming that date on the schedule. I expect a lot of politicin’ to go on behind the scenes. Team Brazil is managed by former F1 World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi. Its driver Nelson Piquet Jr. a son of another World Champion sits third in the championship standings so it would be viewed as a significant loss for A1GP not to compete in Brazil.
Under the future is now category Thursday saw testing of an innovative method of removing disabled cars from the racing surface and gravel traps. Called A1 Recovery it will consist of a single-engined Swiss helicopter operated by Air Zermatt. The system passed it’s first trial and will be in operation this weekend for incidents that occur between turns 2 and 10.
Friday’s first official practice sessions took place with Team France once again showing the way. In France’s alternating scheme of drivers Nicolas Lapierre has the seat this round and led the first session by over a second with Teams Czech Republic, Italy, Ireland, and Switzerland in second through fifth. Team USA, with new driver Philip Giebler, finished the session in 22nd with a time over 2 seconds off Lapierre’s pace.
France also topped the time sheets in the second session with Teams Ireland, Switzerland, Great Britain, and Italy in trail. Team USA was again 22nd although Giebler gained 6 tenths in time but still 2 seconds behind France. Great Britian’s Robbie Kerr posted the largest improvement between sessions gaining 2 1/2 seconds and 15 spots.
In other team notes, Team Russia is again “taking a Stoli break” this week and won’t be competing. It’s their third absence in six events. Team Malaysia and former F1 Minardi driver, Alex Yoong will compete in both Sprint and Feature events this weekend. To this point Yoong and co-driver Fairuz Fauzy have alternated between the Sprint and Feature events. Yoong will fly the Malaysian Flag solo while Fauzy prepares for his wedding later this month.
2003 IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon tested his native New Zealand
With their overwhelming speed advantage (2 seconds/lap?) in “identical” cars is there any chance the French are, dare I say it, cheating? What kind of inspections and car checking does the new series have? It can’t be nearly as thorough as F1 or NASCAR.
Let’s start a rumor, “The ‘effin frog’s are ‘effin with the regs”!!
Frogs cheat? One’s things for sure and has been confirmed, Frogs do fly.
I’m still waiting for the pigs (Team USA) to take wing! But that may have to wait from the looks of that 2 second gap. But hey it’s not all “bad” news for Team USA they beat India and Lebanon by a half a second to stay off the bottom rung of the ladder!
BTW France only topped the first session by 3 tenths over the Czech Republic and the second session by just over one tenth quicker than Ireland. The top ten are separated by about 1.1 seconds so it’s not as dominate as it appears.
Yeah, I read the 2/10 difference to second place, but it’s difficult for me to by pass the chance to do a little “Frog Flogging.”
I gotta get me that OLN feed!
I have this thing for Frogs myself, but it’s hard to say much in this context when the team has won eight straight with little competition except last round.
OLN may be better than nothing but it looks like the events are time delayed by one week until the Mexico round then it appears they are broadcast live.. Here is what the sched looks like at the moment.
BTW I would recommend not missing Eastern Creek to see the horrifiing crash by the Japanese car and also the Malaysian round because it had the best show for passing for the lead and in the pack.
A1 Team USA 2005-2006 OLN Television Schedule As of December 6th, 2005
Date Race Time
December 10, 2005 Estoril, Portugal 6 PM
December 11, 2005 Eastern Creek, Australia 11 PM
December 17, 2005 Sepang, Malaysia 6 PM
December 18, 2005 Dubai, U.A.E. 11 PM
January 21, 2006 Sentul, Indonesia 6 PM
January 23, 2006 Indonesia (re-broadcast) 3 PM
February 4, 2006 Durban, South Africa 6 PM
February 6, 2006 South Africa (re-broadcast) 3 PM
February 18, 2006 Curtiba, Brazil 6 PM (Event canceled - marc)
February 20, 2006 Brazil (re-broadcast) 3 PM (Event canceled - marc)
February 26, 2006 Monterrey, Mexico 6 PM
February 27, 2006 Mexico (re-broadcast) 3 PM
March 19, 2006 Laguna Seca, California 7 PM
March 20, 2006 Laguna Seca (re-broadcast) 3 PM
April 2, 2006 Shanghai, China 3 PM
April 3, 2006 China (re-broadcast) 3 PM
Note: All times Eastern Standard Time. Telecasts two hours in length.