The Durban thread

[Last2LiftOff]

A1GP Durban race programme at a1gp.com. That's the earliest event schedule from these guys that I can recall.

FRIDAY 22 FEBRUARY 2008
1100 – 1125 A1GP 1st Official Practice Session – Part 1
1135 – 1200 A1GP 1st Official Practice Session – Part 2
1400 – 1500 A1GP 2nd Official Practice Session

SATURDAY 23 FEBRUARY 2008
1100 – 1200 A1GP 3rd Official Practice Session
1415 – 1530 A1GP Qualifying

SUNDAY 24 FEBRUARY 2008
1100 – 1120 A1GP Sprint Race
1500 – 1610 A1GP Feature Race

And Oliver Jarvis back for GBR. Hmm, warming-up for DTM.

[Francis Albert]

Filipe Albuquerque in for Portugal!

[Pro Racer]

well the championship will get interesting now especially with France having to replace Duval, IMO NZ's to lose really. i think Martin and Wickins have been going well of late so maybe another good showing from these 2.

[hotwheels]

Originally Posted by Francis Albert

Filipe Albuquerque in for Portugal!

nice addition.

[cds_uk]

Has Cochet got the France drive, i must say i rate him very highly and i think he would carry on where Duval and the rest left off, not so sure about Nic Prost though.

[hotwheels]

Originally Posted by cds_uk

Has Cochet got the France drive, i must say i rate him very highly and i think he would carry on where Duval and the rest left off, not so sure about Nic Prost though.

Does anyone know why Duval is being dropped? He has driven quite well and could have managed more 1st places if the pit-stop strategy didn't hurt him so much.

[mac]

He has GT and Nippon commitments in Japan.

[Kiwi3]

I agree about Cochet, he was mega in F3. However that was some time ago, I therefore wonder if he may have lost his edge. After Eastern Creek I also read that Premat or Lapierre could possibly come back, so either way I don't think France will be significantly weakened.

I hardly think the championship is NZ's to lose. What about Switerzerland? At one stage they looked like they were going to run away with it, and Jani is committed until the end of the season. You can't rule out Germany and South Africa either.

[N.A-D.R]

Im looking forward to this one, should be awesome!

As for me, i Hope the title challengers can all go at it from now on an i hope Team AUS can get some more points!

[Last2LiftOff]

A great street circuit, and conveniently a hot lap with Adrian Zaugg at a1gp.com.

[Kiwi3]

Can't make my prediction picks yet as still no confirmation of France and Canada drivers...

Youngster with only F.BMW experience in for Czech Republic. Will be interesting to see how he goes. Anyone knows if he has any street circuit experience?

I wonder why Alex Yoong is now out of favour for Malaysia. Surely not all that teams problems are his fault, Fauzy did nothing of note at Eastern Creek (he was very slow in the wet).

It will definitely be a very interesting race weekend, who knows who will finish and who will not and what the effect on the championship will be.

[spiderwoman]

Kiwi3, from what i heard Malaysia the only team are using dry set up, and they forgot to put something to give the car more grip in the wet conditions.But last weekend he proved himself to won the GP2 Asia with Supernova Racing Tean in Sentul,Indonesia in the wet race and record the fastest lap.I think he improved a lot after he joint World series by Renault Championship last year.

[hotwheels]

Originally Posted by mac

He has GT and Nippon commitments in Japan.

If he HAS commitments in Japan, why he is always telling the press that he DOES NOT KNOW whether or not he is sticking with the team? For me it sounds like "I am still waiting for someone to decide".

[Kiwi3]

Thanks spiderwoman, that explains his performance. I hope Malaysia get some luck, they've had a miserable season so far.

[Kiwi3]

More news is that Wickens will be driving for Canada again, supported by a 17 year old from Formula BMW champion called Morad or something like that.

Khalil Beschir is back in the seat for Lebanon, I wonder what has happened to Chris Alajajian? I thought he had promise despite a tendancy to have accidents.

No word yet from Team France, I guess they are waiting until the last minute to see if they can screw up our prediction competition.

[N.A-D.R]

Chris had very bad luck during this year. I would say hes the most unluckiest driver this year. I think he should stay in the Car because i think he has the biggest chance for Lebanon to score points.

[Last2LiftOff]

Quite the step-up for the FBMW drivers I would think, and on a street circuit no less surrounded by concrete. Should get their heart rates up. France the lone hold-out on an announcement then.

Driver Entry List A1GP Durban, South Africa RD 7: 24 Feb 2008

AUS: Martin
BRA: Junqueira / Negrao
CAN: Wickens / Morad
CHN: Cheng
CZE: Kral
FRA: TBA
GER: Ammermuller
GBR: Jarvis
IND: Karthikeyan /
Sureshwaren
INA: Hermanto
IRL: Carroll / Quinn
ITA: Piscopo
LEB: Beschir
MAL: Fauzy
MEX: Garza
NED: Bleekemolen / Luyendyk
NZL: Reid
PAK: Khan
POR: Albuquerque
RSA: Zaugg / Orr
SUI: Jani / Fassler
USA: Summerton

[Red Bulldog]

Tough one to pick.
Can't see drivers like Ammermuller and Karthikeyan getting round without hitting the wall at some point, you never know which Zaugg is going to turn up, I'd say Jani and Reid are favourites

[hotwheels]

Duval for France from Saturday onwards. Team France will use three drivers this weekend.

[NAC]

Originally Posted by Red Bulldog

I'd say Jani and Reid are favourites

I'd believe you with your recent history

[Red Bulldog]

Originally Posted by NAC

I'd believe you with your recent history

Thanks, I'll probably bomb badly now!

[socram]

I couldn't predict... Just expect Jonny Reid (NZ) to settle in slowly, as he hasn't raced there before and the lad is blessed with oodles of patience.

Street circuits have a nasty habit of upsetting the form books and should reward the tidy drivers.

[strider]

Originally Posted by hotwheels

Duval for France from Saturday onwards. Team France will use three drivers this weekend.

Full story here. It sounds quite complicated to me. Any idea that Duval was playing hard to get should be scotched. It sounds as though there is very good co-operation from his team in Japan.

[Kiwi3]

I wonder why France are using Prost and Cochet. Cochet should be eligible for the rookie session as he did it in Eastern Creek (he didn't turn 28 last week did he?), would surely make more sense if he did all of Friday before handing over to Duval on Saturday.

[jackschmidt]

My guess is that it wouldn't be very helpful to have only one driver do the actual test. For one thing, Prost isn't the one competing nor is the other driver. I think this is about collecting as much data from different drivers to feed Duval with. Duval's style obviously differs from the two, but he can very well take pointers on how easy the track is to learn, what are the conditions, and what setup differences the two used. This amounts to a quite a bit of data he can extrapolate from.

The thing about Team France is that all their test sessions should be devoted to giving Loic the best kind of data to guess what setup direction to go to. Two different drivers can give conflicting data, but it does give Loic a good glimpse of what is ahead from two different perspective.