A1 Team Netherlands Starts Season With Podium Finish And Sixth Place In World Cup
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Zandvoort
Oct 01, 2007
A1GP
The third A1GP season has started off well for A1 Team Netherlands. At their home race at Circuit Park Zandvoort the team finished in third on the podium in the Sprintrace and the Feature race resulted in an eighth place finish and three points. With that result A1 Team Netherlands is in sixth in the World Cup of Motorsport standings.
After the rain yesterday the weather became better and better during the day on a completely packed Zandvoort. The atmosphere along the circuit was electric, just like last year, with large numbers of supporters dressed in orange and armed with flags and orange smoke bombs to support A1 Team Netherlands.
From a fifth place Jeroen Bleekemolen started the 12 lap Sprint race this morning at 11.00 hours. Right at the start he was able to overtake Switzerland in the Tarzan corner and climbed to fourth place. Two laps later it was Mexico’s turn, at the same spot. Though A1 Team Netherlands was able to immediately close the gap to France and started to build up the pressure a second place remained out of reach. At the end of the race Mexico came on a bit but Bleekemolen managed to hold third place for A1 Team Netherlands and won the first medal and 10 points.
New in comparison to last year was the fact that the Sprint race result did not determine the grid for the Feature race, this was done with a separate qualifying. A1 Team Netherlands started the 45 lap race from 11th. Also new this season is the mandatory second pitstop and the window for this is only announced to the teams 30 minutes prior to the start. As the team went out to go on the starting grid an electronic problem was discovered by A1 Team Netherlands, but quick and good work by the team together with the people from Zytek fixed this straight away.
At the start Jeroen Bleekemolen went for the outside and immediately overtook a number of cars. Unfortunately Bleekemolen got squeezed and was forced into the gravel on the outside by the Czech Republic. This made A1 Team Netherlands drop far back and it had to fight itself back to the front from sixteenth.
A good first pitstop by the team and a strong second stint by Jeroen Bleekemolen enabled this quite well and soon A1 Team Netherlands was nearing seventh place. All of this accompanied by the loud cheers of the orange supporters on the grandstands and in the dunes. The second pitstop was also good but A1 Team Netherlands had already used all their new tyres, while other teams still had a fresh set ready. This made A1 Team Ireland reclaim the position it had earlier lost to A1 Team Netherlands. The final laps Bleekemolen had to work hard to defend his position against reining champion Germany, but he succeeded and A1 Team Netherlands crossed the finish in eighth. This won the team another three points.
A1 Team South Africa won the Sprintrace and finished in second in the Feature race. They are leading the championship. A1 Team Great Britain managed to win the Feature race.
A1 Team Netherlands team principal Jan Lammers was of course happy to start with a podium; “A podium in the first race is fantastic of course, we still owed the public a podium from last year and I am glad that we were able to give this to them right away. It is a good feeling to finish our home race with a podium and a sixth place in the World Cup after the bad qualifying. We have learned a lot this weekend and we should be able to perform well this season. At the start of the Feature race Jeroen took a gamble and was almost into eighth. If you get away with this you have got the change to compete inside the top six. He constantly had to fight against the bad luck at the start, but it was something he had to try. The last set of tyres was difficult, those were used while the other teams went out on new tyres. In the end the result is a good starting point for the rest of the season. ”
A1 Team Netherlands driver Jeroen Bleekemolen had, apart from both races, also enjoyed the atmosphere along the circuit. ; “Just like last year I was able to see the spectators during the race and again this was amazing, every time I went past there were people cheering. In the Audi S there were two grandstands with a lot of small Dutch flags and that was an awesome sight. We really needed the podium in the Sprint race after yesterday. It was exactly as I set out to do after the qualifying and of course it was super to do it here. The Feature race we really lost yesterday. I took a gamble at the start, but was pushed to the outside and dropped back quite a bit. In my second stint after the pitstop it went very well, I was able to overtake six cars. But when I went out after the second stop it was more difficult. On the new tyres Ireland was about two seconds faster, so I had no chance against them”.
A1 Team Netherlands now has 13 points. South Africa is leading with 28 points. The next A1GP is held on 14 October on the Brno circuit in the Czech Republic.
