Reid takes dominant sprint race win
Team New Zealand's Jonny Reid converted pole position into an excellent sprint race victory in his home A1GP event at Taupo on Sunday
The driver of 'Black Beauty' led the full race distance after making sure he kept ahead of Adrian Zaugg (Team South Africa) at the first corner.
Zaugg struggled for pace from the start, and only just survived a sustained first-lap attack from Christian Vietoris (Team Germany) before a brief safety car period caused by a clash between Neel Jani (Team Switzerland) and Alex Yoong (Team Malaysia).
After the lap four restart, the determined Vietoris found a way into second when Zaugg ran wide at the first corner on lap six. Vietoris then set off after Reid, but after closing to within a second he was unable to put any further pressure on the home driver.
Loic Duval (Team France) later passed Zaugg as well to take the final podium spot. Zaugg came home fourth ahead of Jeroen Bleekemolen (Team Netherlands) and Adam Carroll (Team Ireland).
The retirement of points leader Jani and Reid's win have had a dramatic effect on the championship standings. Jani is now just five points clear of Reid going into this afternoon's feature race.
Pos Driver Team Time/Gap 1. Jonny Reid New Zealand 19:25.408 2. C.Vietoris Germany + 3.192 3. Loic Duval France + 4.899 4. Adrian Zaugg South Africa + 7.823 5. J.Bleekemolen Netherlands + 9.581 6. Adam Carroll Ireland + 10.912 7. J.Summerton USA + 11.417 8. Joao Urbano Portugal + 13.315 9. John Martin Australia + 15.580 10. N.Karthikeyan India + 22.968 11. Adam Khan Pakistan + 25.773 12. Edoardo Piscopo Italy + 26.048 13. Sergio Jimenez Brazil + 26.541 14. Cheng Cong Fu China + 26.773 15. Chris Alajajian Lebanon + 29.483 16. Satrio Hermanto Indonesia + 31.107 17. David Garza Mexico + 31.349 18. Robert Wickens Canada + 3 Laps 19. Tomas Enge Czech Republic + 4 Laps 20. Robbie Kerr Great Britain + 5 Laps 21. Alex Yoong Malaysia + 14 Laps 22. Neel Jani Switzerland + 14 Laps
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments