Jonathan Summerton Gets First A1GP Win For USA
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Apr 13, 2008
A1GP
Malaysia’s Alex Yoong, who has been on good form all weekend, raced to sixth place ahead of India’s Narain Karthikeyan in seventh, who was running as high as third in the early stages of the race. France’s Franck Montagny and Great Britain’s Robbie Kerr, who are fighting for position in the championship, enjoyed several on-track battles during the 38-lap race and finally crossed the line in eighth and ninth places respectively.
Germany’s Michael Ammermüller took the final points-paying position while home nation China’s Congfu Cheng, who started 20th, made up five places to finish a commendable 15th in front of his home crowd.
Feature race winner Jonathan Summerton was delighted with his first A1GP victory and paid tribute to the hard work of his team:
‘This win is definitely going to build up team morale and we are going to carry that on to Brands Hatch. My hand only hurt when people started wanting to shake it after the race! We did our best to just go out there and go for the win. I knew basically Switzerland was going to be our biggest competition, so I had to go out there and go for the win and I just kept pushing once I got by. We had a bad start to the weekend, but we had to figure out the problem and work from there. The team did a great job working all last night and also hard today. In the pit stops they did a great job and I am glad I am here this weekend and racing to win for us.’
Second-placed Filipe Albuquerque, who achieved Portugal’s best race weekend result to date, was pleased with his performance but is aiming to do even better at the final round in Brands Hatch:
‘This is definitely very good as three podiums just from six races is a very good average. The starts were really bad, and this was not my best weekend for them as normally I do good starts, but I will work on that for Brands Hatch and that will make the difference. To win in this championship, which is so competitive, just a small mistake can cost a lot. That’s racing, it is experience and I hope to do better in Brands Hatch. When I got close to Neel I noticed he had a problem with second gear and I noticed that at the hairpin on the second last corner. He was pretty fast but I knew I would pass him with an early pit stop and then I pushed very hard on my out lap and after that I was just getting away from Ireland.’
Adam Carroll, who notched up Ireland’s third podium finish of the season, said:
‘It wasn’t too bad, but I got bumped into turn one and had nowhere really to go. I lost out to India and Mayalsia. I was able to fight off Malaysia and hold on to fifth place. Then Portugal and India were having a good battle and I was able to pass Narain as well as he kind of had a bad lap as he had just been overtaken so I knew it was my time to jump on him and make a move. After that I pushed as hard as I could but I really could not go any faster as the guys in front were just a bit quicker. It was hard today and the times were just extremely close.’
