Race 1 – France takes its first victory!

For the 6th round of the 2007-2008 A1GP season, a surprise guest joined the two races this weekend: rain. As a disruptive factor, it wasn’t enough to discourage France and South Africa, who achieved their first victory of the season.

Lesson 1

Loic Duval for A1 Team France secured a very impressive pole position for the second consecutive time. He starts at the front and despite the rain appearing mid-race, he holds on until the end of this first ‘Sprint’ race. The Frenchman thus wins his first victory of the season and possibly his last: Formula Nippon and Super GT will occupy him for the rest of the season.

« This is awesome! » comments the French. « We’ve been chasing this victory for a long time, so it’s really great to have won this race. The team did a great job and everything was as it should be! »

This victory is very important to me. It might indeed be my last race in A1GP, so leaving the championship like this would be a very nice way to say ‘goodbye’ to it. In the rain, it was difficult, but with our pace in the dry, I had enough of a lead to be safe for the rest of the race. Concluded Duval.

Duval leads ahead of New Zealand and Canada, both favorites, in front of Germany and the USA. Another protagonist in the championship, Switzerland with Neel Jani, who was second in the standings, only finishes 10th and thus loses significant ground to New Zealand and France.

Result race 1 – Sprint – Top 10