A1GP

Brands Hatch: Team Switzerland Friday notes

A1 Team Switzerland hampered by slow puncture Only 10th in the first A1GP practice session at Brands Hatch Once again, the Swiss A1-Team struggled with a technical problem, in the first practice session of the Nations' World Cup of Motor Racing.

Published: Jun 19, 2009, 7:53 PM

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A1 Team Switzerland hampered by slow puncture

Only 10th in the first A1GP practice session at Brands Hatch

Once again, the Swiss A1-Team struggled with a technical problem, in the first practice session of the Nations' World Cup of Motor Racing. At Brands Hatch, England, the squad lost valuable preparation time due to a slow puncture and consequently had to settle for finishing 10th.

At first, Jani didn't realise that his rather poor lap times were caused by a slow puncture of the right rear tyre. Then, he had to cope with contesting the remainder of the session with a used tyre and therefore, the set-up of his car had to be extensively changed. At the end of the day, the team's set-up work was virtually over, following the incident. After all, it became obvious that driver and mechanics were on the right path when it came to the set-up adjustments. Nonetheless, there just wasn't enough time to clearly reduce the gap to the front-runners.

In the end, Jani was nearly 1.3 seconds slower than Dutchman Jeroen Bleekemolen and also wasn't able to match the pace of his main rivals, Ireland's Adam Carroll (2nd) and Portuguese Filipe Albuquerque (6th). "At first, we were truly distracted by the puncture," admitted Jani. "Nonetheless, I think that we did a good job, afterwards. Never before in the season to date we changed the car's set-up as massively as in this session."

Team Principal Max Welti also wasn't ready to lose his cool due to the problem. "It's true, we will have to do a lot of work," said the man from Zurich, "But the really crucial moments will be the qualifying session on Saturday and the races on Sunday. Therefore, we are confident when it comes to battling it out for the title with Ireland and Portugal."

As the season finale that was supposed to be held in Mexico had to be cancelled due to the swine flu raging there, England now will be the venue of the decision in the battle for the A1GP title. Prior to the final race weekend, the three remaining title contenders -- Switzerland, Ireland and Portugal -- are split by just six points. Possibly, the drop-score regulation could prove to be crucial. For every team, the worst total score achieved in the two rounds of a race weekend will be dropped. For Switzerland, this score currently are the four points scored in the opening stages of the season, at Zandvoort, Netherlands. While Ireland and Portugal may add all the points scored at Brands Hatch to their tallies as they had to leave Zandvoort empty-handed.

-credit: switzerland

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