TAUPO, New Zealand — A1 Team Germany’s Christian Vietoris secured his first-ever A1 Grand Prix feature victory, while New Zealand’s Jonny Reid vaulted his team to the top of the A1GP standings in Sunday’s 50-lap event at Taupo Motorsport Park.
Vietoris secured the victory following the team’s final pit stop on lap 35 and beat out Canada’s Robert Wickens by nearly two seconds to become the youngest winning driver in A1GP history.
Vietoris started second behind France’s Loic Duval and ran in the top three the first 16 laps before slipping into the lead following the first round of pit stops.
France continued to follow Germany until the next round of pit stops on lap 35. France stayed out, hoping to make up ground on Germany on the track as Vietoris beat out Portugal’s Joao Urbano off pit road. One lap later, Wickens brought his cars to pit road and got out ahead of Duval to take second behind Vietoris. Ireland’s Adam Carroll briefly held the lead until coming to pit road for his final stop, handing the lead to Vietoris.
With Wickens trailing by nearly a second, Vietoris began to pull away and cruised to his first A1GP victory and the second for Team Germany.
New Zealand’s Jonny Reid — who gave the Kiwi’s their first A1GP victory in the earlier sprint race — finished fourth, bringing New Zealand to the top of the points standings with 82, two points ahead of Switzerland and France. Carroll finished fifth to give Ireland their ninth top-10 finish of the season.
The finish:
Christian Vietoris, Robert Wickens, Loic Duval, Jonny Reid, Adam Carroll, Sergio Jimenez, Adrian Zaugg, Jonathan Summerton, Jeroen Bleekmolen, David Garza, Adam Khan, Tomas Enge, Joao Urbano, Neel Jani, Congfu Cheng, Alex Yoong, John Martin, Satrio Hermanto, Robbie Kerr, Edoardo Piscopo, Chris Alajajian, Narain Karthikeyan.