The 2008–09 A1 Grand Prix of Nations, Netherlands was an

A1 Grand Prix A1 Grand Prix (A1GP) was a "single-make" open-wheel auto racing series that ran from 2005 until 2009. It was unique in its field in that competitors solely represented their nation as opposed to themselves or a team, the usual format in most for ...

race, held at

Circuit Park Zandvoort Circuit Zandvoort (), known for sponsorship reasons as CM.com Circuit Zandvoort, and previously known as Circuit Park Zandvoort until 2017, is a motorsport race track located in the dunes north of Zandvoort, the Netherlands, near the North Sea ...

Zandvoort Zandvoort () is a municipality in the province of North Holland, Netherlands. It is one of the major beach resorts of the Netherlands; it has a long sandy beach. It is bordered by coastal dunes of Zuid-Kennemerland National Park and the Amsterdam ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. It was originally set to be the second race of the

2008–09 A1 Grand Prix season The 2008–09 A1 Grand Prix season was the fourth and final season of the A1 Grand Prix formula. Ferrari supplied the engines for all entrants and advised on aspects of the chassis, based on its championship-winning F2004. A1 Team Ireland be ...

, but a delay in the build schedule of the new chassis forced the race at

Mugello The Mugello is a historic region and valley in northern Tuscany, in Italy, corresponding to the course of the River Sieve. It is located to the north of the city of Florence and includes the northernmost portion of the Metropolitan City of Fl ...

to be moved from the season opener. The same build delay meant that only seventeen of the twenty-three A1 teams participated in the race. This was the first race for A1 Team Korea ( Hwang Jin-Woo), A1 Team Monaco (

Clivio Piccione Clivio Piccione (born February 24, 1984 in Monte Carlo, Monaco) is a Monégasque race car driver. He raced in the 2005 GP2 Series season for the Durango team and David Price Racing for 2006. Career Piccione's career started in karting in 1997 ...

), and the new "''Powered by Ferrari''" A1GP car.

Drivers and teams

On 26 September, an article on the official A1GP website, detailed that a full grid of cars would not be on track at Zandvoort for the race weekend, due to the build schedule delay. It was subsequently confirmed that a maximum of eighteen teams will be racing – Canada, Germany (

Michael Ammermüller Michael Ammermüller (born 14 February 1986) is a racing driver from Germany. After competing in various junior formulae, he became a test and reserve driver for the Red Bull Racing Formula One team in the 2007 season. Following this, he repr ...

), Great Britain (

Danny Watts Danny Watts is a British professional racing driver. Career He was born in Aylesbury, and started racing in 1993, when he began karting. After five seasons of karting, he stepped up to single seater racing in 1998 in the UK Formula First ch ...

), India (

Narain Karthikeyan Kumar Ram Narain Karthikeyan (born 14 January 1977) is an Indian racing driver. He was the first Indian driver to compete in Formula One. He has previously competed in A1GP, and the Le Mans Series. He has won multiple races in A1GP, British F ...

) and Mexico ( Davíd Garza Pérez) will thus make their season debut at the second round in China. Germany (

) did not, in fact, debut until round 5 in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

, while Canada did not appear all season. Subsequently, Team Pakistan revealed that technical issues with their car were compromising the safety of their driver, Adam Khan – and thus, they too delayed the start of their season, leaving 17 teams to race. Like Canada, Pakistan did not appear all season. As several teams were still arriving as of Saturday morning, and were unable to shake down their cars before the start of the planned sessions, rookie sessions were not held.

Qualifying

As some teams had only arrived on Saturday morning, the qualifying format was changed for Zandvoort. In place of the usual four fifteen-minute, single-lap sessions, teams were given a one-hour session in which they could complete as many laps as they wished. Those times would set the grid for the Sprint race, while the results from the Sprint race would determine the grid for the Feature race. The pole position time, set by the Netherlands (

Jeroen Bleekemolen Jeroen Bleekemolen (born 23 October 1981 in Heemstede) is a Dutch professional racing driver. In the Chrysler Viper GTS-R he drove in the FIA GT Championship, with great success. He competed in the very competitive German Formula Three Champion ...

) was four seconds quicker than the fastest lap set the previous year in the Lola/Zytek cars. Bleekemolen lined up on pole, 0.316s ahead of

Earl Bamber Earl Anderson Bamber (born 9 July 1990) is a professional racing driver from New Zealand, currently competing as a factory driver for Porsche Motorsport in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTLM class. He is the 2014 Porsche Supercup an ...

and 0.338s ahead of Adam Carroll in third. Both

Felipe Guimarães Felipe "Lopes" Guimarães (born March 22, 1991, in Anápolis, Goiás) is a Brazilian racing driver. After a childhood in karting, Guimarães transitioned to the extremely competitive Formula Three Sudamericana series at the age of 16 and finishe ...

and

Ho-Pin Tung Ho-Pin Tung (; born December 4, 1982) is a Chinese people in the Netherlands, Chinese-Dutch racing driver who races with a Chinese license. Career Born in Velp, Gelderland, Netherlands, Tung started kart racing in the Netherlands in 1997 befo ...

failed to set a time.

Sprint Race

Owing to the treacherous conditions, the 12-lap Sprint Race was started behind the Safety Car. The newly introduced mandatory Sprint race pit-stop was removed for this race, to help the teams to conserve equipment. On Lap 2, the Safety Car pulled in, and the cars were released. On Lap 3, Adam Carroll spun at the final corner and was hit by

, forcing both of their retirements. On Lap 3, Satrio Hermanto also retired after a spin. On Lap 5, Hwang Jin-Woo retired, after colliding with John Martin heading into the first corner. Martin managed to continue. On Lap 7,

passed

for the lead, after a failed passing attempt led to Bleekemolen running wide and allowing Bamber to pass. On Lap 9,

Fairuz Fauzy Muhammad Fairuz bin Mohd Fauzy (born 24 October 1982 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) is a Malaysian professional race car driver. Early career Fairuz started competing in karting events in 1994 before making the move to British Formula Ford at ...

passed Bamber for the lead, and then began to build up a lead over the New Zealander. On Lap 11,

spun out of fifth place. On Lap 11,

also spun out. The race was red-flagged on Lap 12, because of the treacherous conditions. Fauzy won ahead of Bamber, and

Loïc Duval Loïc Duval (; born 12 June 1982) is a French professional racing driver racing for Audi Sport as a factory driver in DTM and driving for Dragon Racing in Formula E. He won the 2013 24 Hours of Le Mans with Allan McNish and Tom Kristensen dri ...

. Duval also set fastest lap. Race stopped after 12 laps because of the terrible conditions

Feature Race

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

( Hwang Jin-Woo) were sent to the back of the grid for attempting to overtake under a yellow flag, and causing an avoidable collision in the Sprint race. The second pit-stop window was set to be between Laps 24 and 32. As conditions hadn't improved since earlier, the race was started behind the Safety Car. The Safety Car pulled in at the end of Lap 2, to get the race underway. On Lap 5,

Neel Jani Neel Jani (born 8 December 1983) is a Swiss professional Porsche factory driver. His father is from India and his mother is German Swiss. He achieved his greatest success winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2016 after first joining Porsche's LMP ...

pulled into the pits and retires, while Adam Carroll spun out at Turn 6. On Lap 6,

Fabio Onidi Fabio Onidi (born 9 March 1988 in Milan) is a professional racing driver from Italy. Career Karting Prior to starting his racing career, Onidi raced in karting for a number of years, finishing sixth in the European Championship ICA Junior cat ...

spun and collected Adrian Zaugg, putting both out of the race. After the first set of pit-stops, France (

) led from New Zealand (

) and Portugal (

Filipe Albuquerque Filipe Miguel Delgadinho Albuquerque (born 13 June 1985) is a Portuguese professional racing driver, currently driving a Acura ARX-05 in the IMSA SportsCar Championship for Wayne Taylor Racing, and an Oreca 07 in the FIA World Endurance Cham ...

). A lot of action took place on Laps 16–17: Jeroen Bleekemolen pulled into the pits with a steering wheel problem; Indonesia ( Satrio Hermanto) crashed out; Korea ( Hwang Jin-Woo) spun and rejoined; and Portugal (

) spun and crashed in the final turn. The Safety Car was deployed while the wrecks were cleared. At this point, all remaining cars in the race were guaranteed points-finishes, which means Monaco (

) and Korea ( Hwang Jin-Woo) would score on their debut, and Lebanon (

Daniel Morad Daniel Morad (born April 24, 1990) is a Canadian-Assyrian racecar driver. He is notable for winning the 2007 American Formula BMW championship, the 2010 World Championship in the Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals in La Conca, Italy, And the 2017 ...

) would score their first ever points. On Lap 24,

did a 360-spin and continues, losing a place to John Martin. Meanwhile, Netherlands (

) were having gearshifting problems and lost a place to USA (

Charlie Kimball Charles Newton Kimball (born February 20, 1985) is an American race car driver currently competing in the IndyCar Series with A. J. Foyt Enterprises He has scored a win, six podiums, and 13 top 5s. His best season result was ninth in 2013 and 201 ...

). On Lap 31,

retired after running off the track, but not before setting the fastest lap of the race. France (

) still led after the second round of pit-stops. On Lap 33, the Safety Car was deployed after Morad lost control and spun into the back of

, sending both cars into the tyre wall at Tarzan corner. At this stage, the race had nearly reached the 69-minute time limit. Two laps later the time expired, and France (

) took the chequered flag behind the safety car, ahead of Malaysia (

), and New Zealand (

). Brazil (

) joined the race late on, after being unable to make the start, as they were unable to repair the damage from their accident in the Sprint race in time. Scheduled for 45 laps but stopped earlier because of time limit

After race

At the first practice session,

( Hwang Jin-Woo) was warned due to their political insistence which the team put on the car: '' Dokdo is a territory of Korea''.1그랑프리팀코리아 `독도.한글` 세계에 알렸다"> However, they kept running the car with same insistence written in not

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

but

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...

(

Hangul The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The le ...

) during the race weekend. As a result, the team received a penalty of fine after the race.1그랑프리팀코리아 `독도.한글` 세계에 알렸다" />

Notes

*It was the 33rd race weekend (66 starts). *It was the 3rd race in the

, and the 3rd race at

. *It was the first race weekend for A1 Team Korea ( Hwang Jin-Woo), and A1 Team Monaco (

). *It was the first race weekend as main driver for

, Hwang Jin-Woo,

and

. *Records: **In the Sprint race, it was the first win for

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

and

. **

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...

(

) had participated in 33 rounds (63 starts) before scoring their first points. **

( Hwang Jin-Woo),

(

) and

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...

(

) all scored their first ever points in the series, in the Feature race.

References

External links

Malaysia wins Sprint race Sprint race: as it happenedSprint race resultsFrance masters ZandvoortFeature race: as it happenedMain race results
{{DEFAULTSORT:2008-09 A1 Grand Prix Of Nations, Netherlands A1 Grand Prix Of Nations, Netherlands, 2008-09 Grand Prix race