Swiss take pole in A1GP

Series leaders Switzerland grabbed pole position for the feature race at this weekend’s A1GP World Cup of Motorsport event at Zhuhai International Circuit after Neel Jani returned the fastest time in his final lap of the qualifying session today.

Jani, who put the Swiss at the top of the A1GP standings with victory in both the sprint and feature races in Malaysia last month, clocked a time of 1:23:465 secs on the 4.3-kilometre circuit as the chequered flag came down to bump India off the pole.

Following closely behind Jani on the track, Oliver Jarvis of Great Britain recorded the second fastest time of the session, 0.185 secs behind the Swiss driver, to make it onto the front row of the grid for the feature race.

Narain Karthikeyan had been just seconds away from giving India its first ever pole position in an A1 GP race with a time of 1:23:767 but the late heroics of Jani and Jarvis pushed him down to third place, with Loic Duval of France in fourth position and Germany’s Michael Ammermuller in fifth.

Ammermuller had earlier set the pace in qualifying for the sprint race, taking pole position for Germany in a time of 1:23:203 secs, 0.222 secs ahead of Jani in the Swiss car.

He said: “We did a good job to get first place in qualifying and it’s a great result for the whole team.

“We were struggling a bit in free practice but then we got a really good car and we were quite dominant in the first qualifying.

“The track got a bit worse towards the end and we weren’t in the top three but still I think it’s a good result. It’s better to be first in the first race because it’s a short race and quite difficult to overtake and in the second race it’s all about strategy and anything is possible.”

Sepang double race winner Jani, who has been struggling with brake problems on the Swiss car, said: “We had another great qualifying – second for the Sprint race and first for the Feature race – but it’s very tight this time and all very close, every little mistake can put you three spots back.

“I’m very pleased as yesterday we had a lot of brake problems so the team did a great job to get it solved for today.”

Jarvis, will start the sprint race in fifth place, said: “The free practice and qualifying sessions have been pretty tough. Like Neel said, the track adheres to very close times so a small mistake can make a big difference.

“It’s also very difficult to get a full lap together, there’s a lot of heavy braking zones and it’s very easy to make a mistake.

“We’ve struggled a little bit so far but hopefully we can have very good races and score a lot of points.”

Ireland’s Adam Carroll will be third on the grid for the sprint race, with Congfu Cheng securing fourth spot for China in his first home race of the season.