Date November 9, 2008 Pole Ireland (Adam Carroll) 1st Ireland (Adam Carroll) | Weather Clear, 20°C Time 1'15.423 | |
Location Chengdu Goldenport Circuit
Chengdu, People's Republic of China | ||
The 2008–09 A1 Grand Prix of Nations, China was an A1 Grand Prix race, held at Chengdu Goldenport Circuit, Chengdu, People's Republic of China.
Contents
All proceeds from this race were donated to the Sichuan Earthquake Relief Fund, following the earthquake which devastated the region in May 2008.
Drivers
After missing the first race due to a lack of cars, A1 Teams Great Britain, India and Mexico took part in this race. Both A1 Team Pakistan and A1 Team Germany will not make their season debut until the fourth round at Taupo. Team Pakistan require more changes to their chassis to render it suitable for their lead driver Adam Khan, while Team Germany is undergoing management restructuring.
The status of A1 Team Canada was not announced, but they were removed from the race's drivers list on the A1GP website front page, and did not make an appearance. Their status for future events is still unknown.
↑ Karthikeyan and Andretti were granted special dispensation to participate in the rookie session as neither team had completed as many testing miles as the other teams with the new car. Karthikeyan (F1) and Andretti (IRL ICS) are veteran drivers in one of the four series (F1, GP2, FN, IRL-ICS) which their drivers may not compete as A1GP rookies.
Qualifying
Due to a delay in recovering the Italian car after spinning into a gravel trp during the first qualifying session, the second qualifying session was cancelled, meaning all times from Q1 set the field for Q1, with Ireland taking their first ever pole position, ahead of The Netherlands and Switzerland.
Q4 was stopped briefly after a spin for France. The session was resumed with teams able to make a run in time. Danny Watts for Great Britain took pole ahead of Ireland and Portugal.
Sprint Race
For safety reasons, a pit stop was not required for the Sprint Race. In lap 2, Brazil is slowing and the Safety car is on while Felipe Guimarães reach the pits. In the same lap 2, China spun and lost some positions but finally catch up and pass Korea in lap 7. when the Safety car is out, the order was Ireland, Netherlands, Great Britain, Switzerland, South Africa, Portugal, New Zealand and France. Those positions remain until the end of the race with the fastest lap for Adam Carroll.
Feature Race
The second pit-stop window for the Feature Race was set for Laps 24–32.