A1GP news
Netherlands pleased with points
03 February 2008After a difficult weekend A1 Team Netherlands did manage to leave Australia with five points, after finishing ninth in the Sprint race and eighth in the Feature race.
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Jeroen Bleekemolen commented, "We did not have the pace, it is that simple. In the Sprint race I was able to compete quite ok on a dry track, after a good start I was right behind America. When it started raining our pace still was reasonable. We gained a few places and I was right behind Germany. At the end of the straight I went next to him going into turn 1, he cut me off completely and I had to avoid him by going through the grass. That did cost me some positions. In the Feature race the car did not feel right at all in the first stint. We did not have the pace and despite a good start and some places gained I was passed left and right. There was a strange vibration in the car, it seemed to come from the steering rack. We were close to retiring, it was that bad. But after the pitstops it got better and better and I was able to close the gap quite fast. At the end of the race I was again in the same position with Germany. I put the car next to him on the same spot and again he starts moving left until there is no more room left. If I had put my foot down and stayed there we would have both gone into the wall at 260 km/h. I had to lift and let him win this one. We did report this at the stewards and they are looking into this right now. But even if something happens it does not make a huge difference for us. Seventh or eighth is certainly not good enough for us."
Jan Lammers commented, "This was definitely one of our most difficult races so far, around lap 18 we were looking reasonable being able to match a top 6 race-lap times, other than that this was below average and we should be pleased to still get away with 8th place. It is obvious that we have a lot of important work to do. The A1GP races are still fantastic to watch but our share in it is slipping away and we have to do something about that. This is only possible when we understand what the problem is and this can be a combination of various small factors. These are the facts that we shall have to live with for now, other teams have moved up on us and run at a higher pace, we have slipped away from a fairly constant top-6 team to a mediocre top 10. One thing our fans can be assured of and that is that we will criticize ourselves more than they will ever be able to do. We have all the people and ingredients in place to do well and there is no excuse for these poor results. We still have 8 race and 128 points to catch up"
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