A1GP news

Incidents hinder Netherlands

In a hectic qualifying for the A1GP Durban, with red and yellow flags, A1 Team Netherlands has not been able to convert the potential it showed on Friday in good grid positions. In the Sprintrace the team wil start from seventh, a sixth grid position is the starting-point for the Feature race.In a close battled free practice this morning A1 Team Netherlands again showed that it was on the pace on the narrow street circuit, finishing fifth.

Jeroen Bleekemolen commented, "We were driving past the casino today, but qualifying looked like that as well. Every time something went wrong and you just had to be lucky to go out on track at the right moment. In the first session we were not able to set a time at all and lost a set of tyres in the process. There was heavy traffic in the second session and also someone spun right in front of me. I was not able to put in a good lap this way. Then you are in seventh, we were not able at all to maximize on our potential for the Sprint race. It was quite strange in Q3 with the pitlane opening and closing straight away. By then we were at the end of the pitlane and had to go back again. We were driving with the tyres from Q1 and the car was sliding all over the place. In the final session there was a red flag again just as we were out on track on new tyres. By the time we could our lap time they were used as well. When you see that even then we were not even four tenths off you know it would have been possible. We certainly have got the pace and have to hope that everything goes our way, with good starts and pitstops. And hope that others will make mistakes instead of us. Of course you will try to overtake, but that is very difficult here. You might be able to do something if someone is making a mistake. But normally speaking that is not the case with good drivers and margings being as narrow as they are."

Jan Lammers added, "We are having a tough time. Yesterday was some light in the dark, it was a good feeling. Of course we would have liked to continue on this today. But that was not meant to be. Really, we couldn't do anything right. The pace is still there. We should still be able to run inside the top three. When you are in your flying lap or on your outlap and there is a red or yellow flag, that is just bad luck. People who did not go out yet in session 1 had three new sets available. It just did not go our way at all. We are even lucky that we are fairly close to the top, but it is going to be a hectic race tomorrow. It is too bad that we were not able to show our true potential today."

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