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Switzerland's Neel Jani put in a
sensational performance during qualifying for the A1GP Sepang,
Malaysia this afternoon to take pole position for tomorrow's
Sprint and Feature race. The Swiss star will start the Sprint
race from P1 tomorrow morning for the third consecutive season
at Sepang and he will lead the drivers off the grid for A1GP's
50th ever race tomorrow afternoon.
Sprint race qualifying
Neel Jani continued his
magnificent form around the Sepang circuit, setting the
quickest lap during the first qualifying segment and going on
to better it in the second to snatch pole position for the
Sprint race from A1 Team France, demoting Loic Duval to second
on the grid.
Great Britain's Oliver Jarvis and German rookie Michael
Ammermüller will line up alongside each other on the second
row of the Sprint race grid, followed by Canada's Robert
Wickens and championship leader New Zealand's Jonny Reid in
fifth and sixth place respectively.
Feature race qualifying
Having secured pole
position for the Sprint race, Jani stamped his authority on
the weekend by going on to also take pole for the Feature
race, recording an outstanding lap of 1m47.648s in the closing
minutes of the session, almost a second quicker than GBR's
Oliver Jarvis who will line up alongside him on the front
row.
Germany's Michael Ammermüller and Frenchman Loic Duval
qualified in third and fourth position respectively while the
Netherlands' Jeroen Bleekemolen will start the Feature race
from fifth on the grid. Brazilian rookie Sergio Jimenez will
line up alongside the Dutchman in sixth place on the third
row.
After a challenging session, home nation Malaysia's Alex
Yoong will start the Sprint race from 19th position and the
Feature race from 15th.
Neel Jani was delighted with his final flying lap in the
Swiss car and is aiming to convert his team's double pole into
a double victory tomorrow:
'I thought that my 48.4 which I did on old tyres might
already be enough for pole position. So on my last round I
just went out and thought just go easy, don't push too much or
break too late, and suddenly there was a 47.7 so maybe that
was the solution! James, my engineer, and the team adjusted
the car for each segment - we made some little adjustments on
the tyres with ride heights and each time I went out the car
was better and everything was just perfect. I hope we do
tomorrow what we didn't do the last two years - get both race
wins.'
The 23-year-old driver was also keen to recognise the
contribution of Swiss rookie Rahel Frey, who took part in the
first practice session at Sepang on Friday morning:
'My set up was not so far from what she (Rahel) figured out
more or less so I have to thank her for that. It's a team
effort with the rookie session and you have to go step by
step.'
French driver Loic Duval knows the Sepang circuit well but
struggled with the balance of the car during today's
qualifying session:
'I've raced here before in a different category so it
wasn't so difficult for me to learn the track. The braking
points are a bit different in an A1GP car obviously but anyway
it was enough to be at the front this weekend. We had quite a
bit of understeer during the first three qualifying segments,
so we tried something different in the last one to try to take
pole, but then I suffered from big oversteer so it wasn't good
actually. We're not quick enough to beat Neel this weekend in
qualifying anyway.'
Great Britain's Oliver Jarvis, who will start the Sprint
race from third on the grid and the Feature race from second,
commented:
'We put on a new set of tyres for Qualifying 1 and the
difference was amazing. Unfortunately it just caught me out as
the car had a lot of oversteer. I turned into the double right
hander and the car turned in immediately and I clipped the
curb and nearly went off. So we didn't really set a
competitive time in Q1 which meant we had to take Qualifying 2
quite cautiously. I think it would have been possible to get
pole for the Sprint but we didn't have the pace for a 1.47, so
congratulations to Neel and the team, they did a fantastic job
to take pole in both.'
A1 Team Lebanon will start tomorrow's Feature race from
the back of the grid after having its lap time from the third
qualifying session disqualified when the car was found to be
under the minimum weight at the end of that segment.
Tomorrow's Sprint race at Sepang, Malaysia will start at
11.00 local time and the 70-minute Feature race will start at
15:00.
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