SYDNEY, Australia — Adrian Zaugg led A1 Team South Africa to its second A1 Grand Prix race win of the season with a dominating victory at Sydney’s Eastern Creek Raceway on Sunday.
Zaugg was to start sixth off the grid but moved up to fourth after polesitter Jonny Reid of Team New Zealand and sprint race winner Loic Duval of France both stalled before the start of the race, allowing Switzerland’s Neel Jani to take the early lead in the event followed by Great Britain’s Robbie Kerr and Zaugg.
Driving through a steady rain that fell throughout the event, the top three drivers quickly separated themselves from the rest of the field. The running order up front remained unchanged until Jani and Kerr came to pit road on lap 10 for the first round of pit stops. Zaugg opted to stay out and led the field at a blistering pace, opening up a sizable gap.
Trailing Zaugg by more than six seconds, Jani could do little more than maintain his position as Kerr challenged for the runner-up spot before falling back in the waning laps, leaving Zaugg to run unchallenged to the finish, beating out Jani by nearly 20 seconds.
Kerr held on for third, followed by Brazil’s Sergio Jimenez and John Martin of host country Australia.
Jani’s finish allowed Switzerland to close the gap in the standings, now trailing three points behind France and New Zealand, who are tied for first with 96 points.
The finish:
Adrian Zaugg, Neel Jani, Robbie Kerr, Sergio Jimenez, John Martin, Robert Wickens, Michael Ammermuller, Jeroen Bleekmolen, Jonny Reid, Congfu Cheng, Narain Karthikeyan, Adam Khan, Adam Carroll, Edoardo Piscopo, Tomas Enge, Joao Urbano, Fairuz Fauzy, David Garza, Chris Alajajian, Satrio Hermanto, Loic Duval, Jonathan Summerton.