2006–07 A1 Grand Prix season

A1 Grand Prix season

The 2006–07 A1 Grand Prix season was the second season for the A1 Grand Prix series.
It began on 1 October 2006, at Circuit Park Zandvoort, and the season ended at Brands Hatch on 29 April 2007. A1 Team Germany won it with 128 points, 35 points lead ahead Team New Zealand.

24 teams, each representing a different country, signed up for the second A1 Grand Prix season. All teams and drivers competed in Zytek-powered, Cooper Avon-shod and Lola A1GP chassis. The following teams competed in the 2006–07 championship:

Race Team	Team	Seat holder	Race drivers	Rounds	Other drivers
Alan Docking Racing	A1 Team Australia	Alan Jones	Ryan Briscoe	1, 4-5
			Karl Reindler	2-3, 6-8
			Ian Dyk	9-11
Arena Motorsport	A1 Team Greece	Stathis Basios	Takis Kaitatzis	1-2
			Nikos Zakos	2
	A1 Team India	Atul Gupta	Armaan Ebrahim	1-5
			Narain Karthikeyan	6, 8-11
			Parthiva Sureshwaren	7
Carlin Motorsport	A1 Team Lebanon	Tameem Auchi	Basil Shaaban	1, 3, 5
			Graham Rahal	2
			Khalil Beschir	4
			Alexander Khateeb	6-7
			Allam Khodair	8-11
Charouz Racing System	A1 Team Brazil	Emerson Fittipaldi	Tuka Rocha	1-2, 5, 7	Ruben Carrapatoso Alexandre Negrão Luiz Razia
			Raphael Matos	3-4, 6
			Bruno Junqueira	8-9, 11
			Vítor Meira	10
	A1 Team Czech Republic	Antonin Charouz	Tomáš Kostka	1	Jaroslav Janiš
			Tomáš Enge	2-4, 6-8
			Jaroslav Janiš	5, 9
			Filip Salaquarda	10
			Jan Charouz	11
DAMS	A1 Team France	Jean Paul Driot	Nicolas Lapierre	1-5
			Loïc Duval	6-8, 11
			Jean Karl Vernay	9-10
	A1 Team South Africa	Tokyo Sexwale	Adrian Zaugg	1, 3–4, 8–9, 11	Gavin Cronje Jennifer Murray
			Stephen Simpson	2
			Alan van der Merwe	5-7, 10
A1 Team Great Britain	A1 Team Great Britain	Tony Clements John Surtees	Darren Manning	1
			Robbie Kerr	2, 4–8, 10-11
			Oliver Jarvis	3
A1 Team Indonesia	A1 Team Indonesia	N/A	Ananda Mikola	1-10
			Moreno Soeprapto	11
John Village Automotive	A1 Team Canada	Wade Cherwayko	James Hinchcliffe	1-3, 6-9
			Sean McIntosh	4-5, 10-11
A1 Team Malaysia	A1 Team Malaysia	Alex Yoong	Alex Yoong	All	Fairuz Fauzy
Max Motorsport	A1 Team Switzerland	Max Welti	Sébastien Buemi	1-2, 6–7, 10-11
			Neel Jani	3-5, 8
			Marcel Fässler	9
Performance Racing	A1 Team Pakistan	Arif Hussain	Nur B. Ali	All
Racing for Holland	A1 Team The Netherlands	Jan Lammers	Jeroen Bleekemolen	1-9, 11
			Renger van der Zande	9-10
Status Grand Prix	A1 Team Ireland	Mark Kershaw	Michael Devaney	1-4
			Richard Lyons	5-11
Super Nova Racing	A1 Team Germany	Willi Weber	Nico Hülkenberg	1-8, 10-11
			Christian Vietoris	9
	A1 Team New Zealand	Colin Giltrap	Matt Halliday	1, 3, 8, 11
			Jonny Reid	2, 4–7, 9-10
Team Astromega	A1 Team China	Liu Yu	Congfu Cheng	1-4, 10-11
			Ho-Pin Tung	5-9
	A1 Team Portugal	Luis Vicente	Álvaro Parente	8-9, 11
			João Urbano	10
Team Ghinzani	A1 Team Italy	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Alessandro Pier Guidi	1-2	Michele Rugolo
			Enrico Toccacelo	3-11
Teamex	A1 Team Mexico	Juan Cortina Julio Jáuregui	Salvador Durán	1-9
			Sergio Pérez	10
			Juan Pablo Garcia	11
West Surrey Racing	A1 Team Singapore	N.A.	Christian Murchison	1, 3–4, 6-8
			Denis Lian	2
	A1 Team USA	Rick Weidlinger	Philip Giebler	1-5, 7
			Ryan Hunter-Reay	6
			Jonathan Summerton	8-11

3 A1GP Teams did not participate in all races.

Jennifer Murray, from South Africa was the first ever woman to enter in an A1 Grand Prix weekend. She drove in the rookie session of her home race in Durban round.^[3]

The second A1 Grand Prix season is scheduled to consist of 11 races, held in 10 different countries. Each race is to be run over a three-day weekend, including a practice session on each of Friday and Saturday before a qualifying session on Saturday, and then two races on Sunday.

There are some changes in weekend program for second season:

• Gap between races will be increased to almost three and half hours.
• Sprint race will be about 20 minutes and Feature race about 70 minutes.
• Only top six nations score points in sprint race.

A 12th race had been scheduled to have been held in Brazil; however, on 17 January 2007 the A1GP organisation announced that as a result of a delay in obtaining a local terrestrial television agreement then the event would be cancelled.^[4]

Standings[edit]

Colour Result Gold Winner Silver 2nd place Bronze 3rd place Green Finished, in points Green Retired, in points Blue Finished, no points Purple Did not finish (Ret) Not classified (NC) Red Did not qualify (DNQ) Black Disqualified (DSQ) White Did not start (DNS) Withdrew (WD) Blank Did not participate Injured (INJ) Excluded (EX) Bold Pole position * Fastest lap spr Sprint Race fea Feature Race

Notable 2006–07 season happenings[edit]

Beijing Incident[edit]

The first Chinese round of the 2006/07 A1GP took place on the streets of Beijing. However, the tight hairpin at the end of the backstraight was too tight for the cars to negotiate safely due to a 180 degree left turn. Cars were running wide and stopping mid corner, therefore the sessions were red flagged.

A shorter circuit was created, creating a less tight hairpin halfway up the straight, bypassing most of the old straight. This corner was still not perfect as drivers ran wide despite the corner being wider, and had to avoid the pitlane entry barrier. It had to suffice, though, because otherwise the race would have to be cancelled.

However, another problem arose in qualifying, when manhole covers on the roads were coming undone due to the racing cars’ high downforce and low center of gravity. Grid positions were decided based on practice times. Some advertising banners also came loose around the circuit.

It was announced the races would start behind the safety car as the first corner was also deemed unsafe.

Both races were uneventful, particularly the Sprint Race which took place almost entirely behind the safety car after course officials failed to remove a single spun car in a timely fashion.

April Fools’ hoax[edit]

On 1 April 2006, during the penultimate round of the 2005–06 A1 Grand Prix season in Shanghai, a fake timetable of the 2006–2007 season was published.^[5] This schedule included a night time race in Sápmi, an A1GP USA race in Baghdad, a race in Middle-earth at ‘The Ring’, a Venice Street Race as well as a Tibetan hill climb. In addition, it outlined special regulations, such as requiring only the Cornettos be catered for the Venice race, that “cars will arrive flatpacked for the IKEA Cup race in Narnia, so extra time will be required for their assembly”, and that for the hill climb, half the cars will start from the top, and half will start from the bottom. A race in South Los Angeles was to have drive-by penalties.

References[edit]

External links[edit]