New Zealan and GBR Win, Germany Takes Title

Courtesy A1GP

SHANGHAI, CHINA – A1 Team Great Britain has taken its second consecutive victory in A1GP and the first win for main driver Robbie Kerr, putting the team on pole for this afternoon's A1GP Shanghai, China Feature race. With the PowerBoost on as the car left the grid, Great Britain took the lead into the first corner and built up an advantage that looked comfortable throughout the race.

'It's an excellent job. We did all the hard work yesterday getting out with P1 and then just trying to keep it steady throughout the race, and that what we did. We set a nice consistent pace, and finally.we got one!' said British driver Robbie Kerr.

Commenting on his first race win in A1GP, Kerr continued: 'I'm a bit numb at the minute, I don't know what to think to be honest. To be on P1 for the Feature race and that's the all important focus now. Try not to celebrate the Sprint race now, we can do that tonight.'

The race finished with Great Britain, New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland, the USA and Malaysia all adding to their points total.

For home team China, the Sprint race saw them move one place up the grid for this afternoon's Feature race when they will start in 11th position, just outside the potential points group.

Team New Zealand has taken its third race victory of the season winning the A1GP Shanghai, China Feature race this afternoon ahead of second placed Great Britain but it was Germany that had the most to celebrate as their third place finish gave them enough points to take the 2006/07 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport title.

Race winner Jonny Reid said: 'We've had a great car for much of the weekend, we've been working on it pretty hard as the conditions have changed lot over the weekend, so this is a credit to all of the guys who have put in so much time and hard work. Basically we had a problem with the gear box. It was leaking quite a bit of oil and dropping on to the exhaust quite dramatically. The guys were flat stick working on the car and it was just a credit to all their hard work and it shows how strong a team we are, to get the car working under tough under circumstance.'

Talking about his winning strategy, Reid went on to say: 'Basically Robbie and Nico pitted earlier, so we knew the tyre degradation was quite high, so we knew we had to manage the tyres a little bit longer and makes sure I had strong pace and I managed to nail some good laps while Robbie was in the pits and when I came out I caught them quite quickly and then there was the safety car period and I managed to get a good exit out of the final turn and get the car up the inside. Robbie gave me just enough racing room, it was getting tight there but it's great to work with such classy drivers.'

Third place was enough to secure the season title for A1 Team Germany although driver, Nico Hülkenberg admitted he was still a little disappointed at the result: 'I know I can't always win, it's impossible, we were struggling all weekend long from the being, and I'm sure New Zealand and GBR made a step when they were in Mexico, and I was doing eight days of testing in F3. It was hard to come back because the cars are different like day and night so I was fighting and trying everything, but in the end we didn't manage to get up to speed.

'I think we had a little problem with the rear left in the pit stop, but the pit stop was still alright. Just at the beginning of the race with the two safety car periods it was not the right time for the car, and I was just fighting and struggling and after that before the third safety car, the car was pretty good, I was doing the same lap times as New Zealand and GBR, but then after the safety car it was not so good again.'