2008–09 A1 Grand Prix season

The 2008–09 A1 Grand Prix season was the fourth and final season in its short history. It was announced that Ferrari will be supplying the engines. All cars and official merchandise are contractually obligated to portray the slogan "Powered by Ferrari".

Ferrari had an advisory role with regard to chassis production, meaning that Ferrari themselves did not supply the chassis. The chassis were based on Ferrari's championship-winning F2004.

A1 Team Ireland became the fourth A1GP champions, after a title battle which went down to the final round in Great Britain. Ireland won with 112 points, with team driver Adam Carroll taking five victories at Chengdu, Sepang, Taupo and the series finale at Brands Hatch during the shortened 14 race season. Three rounds were cancelled for a variety of reasons, beginning a disturbing trend with A1 Grand Prix which plagued the following season which was cancelled altogether.

A1 Team Switzerland (95 points) whose driver Neel Jani took four wins, finished runner up at seasons completion, just three points ahead of A1 Team Portugal with their driver Filipe Albuquerque scoring 92 points to take a close third position after taking just one win throughout the season.

Dutch pairing Jeroen Bleekemolen and Robert Doornbos each took a win to take A1 Team Netherlands to fourth position in the team standings with Fairuz Fauzy and Loïc Duval taking the remaining wins for A1 Team Malaysia and A1 Team France respectively.

Teams

During the 2007–08 Shanghai race weekend, it was announced at an official ceremony that Korea would be participating in the 2008–09 season.^[1] Jung-Yong Kim of Omnibus Investment is the seat holder, with Good EMG supporting the project. Carlin Motorsport ran the racing team.

On 29 August 2008, it was announced that A1 Team Monaco would competing in season four. The joint seat holders were Hubertus Bahlsen, and former F3 and GP2 driver Clivio Piccione, who took on the driving duties.^[2]

Two teams appeared in A1GP documentation throughout the season but did not race.^[3] Wade Cherwayko's A1 Team Canada appeared on paper but the team failed to show for any races and Adam Khan^[4] tested the A1 Team Pakistan car on a number of occasions but likewise did not travel to any races.

The 21 teams that started a race in the 2008–09 championship were:

Race Team	Team	Seat holder	Race drivers	Rounds	Others drivers
Alan Docking Racing	A1 Team Australia	Alan Jones	John Martin	All	Ashley Walsh
Andretti Green Racing	A1 Team USA	Michael Andretti	Charlie Kimball	1	Robbie Pecorari
			Marco Andretti	2-6
			J.R. Hildebrand	7
Argo Racing Cars Ltd.	A1 Team India	Ravi Chilukuri	Narain Karthikeyan	2-7	Armaan Ebrahim Parthiva Sureshwaren
	A1 Team Lebanon	Tameem Auchi	Daniel Morad	All	Jimmy Auby
Boer Racing Services	A1 Team Portugal	Luís Vicente	Filipe Albuquerque	All	António Félix da Costa Armando Parente
	A1 Team Switzerland	Max Welti	Neel Jani	All	Alexandre Imperatori
Carlin Motorsport	A1 Team Korea	Jung-Yong Kim	Hwang Jin-Woo	1-3
Connor Racing	A1 Team France	Jean Paul Driot	Loïc Duval	1, 3-4
			Nicolas Prost	2, 5-7
	A1 Team South Africa	Tokyo Sexwale	Adrian Zaugg	1-6	Gavin Cronje Cristiano Morgado
			Alan van der Merwe	7
DSM	A1 Team Brazil	Emerson Fittipaldi	Felipe Guimarães	All	Ana Beatriz
	A1 Team New Zealand	Colin Giltrap	Earl Bamber	1, 3, 5-7
			Chris van der Drift	2, 4
Escuderia del Mediterraneo	A1 Team Mexico	Julio Jauregui Saad	Davíd Garza Pérez	2-3	Juan Pablo Garcia
			Salvador Durán	4-7
A1 Team Great Britain	A1 Team Great Britain	Tony Clements John Surtees	Danny Watts	2-3, 5	Aaron Steele James Winslow
			Dan Clarke	4, 6-7
GU-Racing International	A1 Team Germany	Rolf Beisswanger	Michael Ammermüller	5, 7
			André Lotterer	6
A1 Team Malaysia	A1 Team Malaysia	Alex Yoong	Fairuz Fauzy	1-6
			Aaron Lim	7
A1 Team Monaco	A1 Team Monaco	Clivio Piccione Hubertus Bahlsen	Clivio Piccione	All	Hubertus Bahlsen
Performance Racing	A1 Team Indonesia	Bagoes Hermanto	Satrio Hermanto	1-4, 7
			Zahir Ali	5-6
Racing for Holland	A1 Team The Netherlands	Jan Lammers	Jeroen Bleekemolen	1, 3, 5, 7	Dennis Retera
			Robert Doornbos	2, 4, 6
Team Astromega	A1 Team China	Liu Yu	Ho-Pin Tung	1-3, 5-6	Adderly Fong
			Congfu Cheng	4, 7
Team Ghinzani	A1 Team Italy	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Fabio Onidi	1	Stefano Coletti Christian Montanari
			Edoardo Piscopo	2-5
			Vitantonio Liuzzi	6-7
Status Grand Prix	A1 Team Ireland	Mark Gallagher, Teddy Yip Jr., John Hynes and David Kennedy	Adam Carroll	All	Niall Quinn

New "Powered by Ferrari" car

On 11 October 2007, A1GP and Ferrari announced a six-year collaboration on the new generation of A1GP cars. The new "Powered by Ferrari" car is a modification of the Formula One Ferrari F2004 chassis with a V8 Ferrari engine producing 600 bhp.^[5] The car was officially revealed in Southern England, and driven for the first time by John Watson in an inaugural event in May 2008. Michelin supplied the tyres for the new car.^[6]

The car was developed and tested over more than 5600 kilometres at Mugello Circuit, Fiorano Circuit, Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, Circuito Guadix, Silverstone Circuit, Donington Park, Circuit Paul Ricard and Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours. Andrea Bertolini was the main test driver, but testing was carried out by Marc Gené, Patrick Friesacher, Jonny Kane and Danny Watts during the sessions at Silverstone Circuit.^{[7][8][9][10][11][12]}

Off-season tests and car presentations

On August 2–3, 2008, the first press and public presentation of the A1GP Powered by Ferrari car was held on the TT Circuit Assen with former A1 Team Netherlands driver, Renger van der Zande.^[13] Two weeks after, the car was presented in Rotterdam during the Bavaria City Racing Festival. The A1 Team Netherlands car was driven by Carlo van Dam.^[14]

Pre-season tests of the new 'powered by Ferrari' car took place on consecutive weekends in September at Donington Park, Mugello and Snetterton.^[15][16]

Rule changes

A number of rules were changed for the 2008–09 season.^[17]

• The four qualifying sessions were reduced in length from fifteen minutes to ten minutes each.
• Teams may now utilise a "joker" qualifying lap (from Malaysia onwards). In one of the four qualifying sessions the team may elect to utilise their joker – for the flying lap in that session, the driver is granted the availability of the PowerBoost button for the entire lap.^[18]
• The Sprint Race has been increased from 19 minutes plus one lap, to 24 minutes plus one lap, as well as a mandatory pit-stop being added between laps four and eight, brought into effect starting in Malaysia.
• The Sprint Race now only scores the top eight positions: 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
• Only the best 8 race weekends will count towards the championship. Both the Sprint and Feature race points from one event will be dropped by teams that race all 9 events. This is to ensure that teams that will miss Zandvoort due to the lack of cars, will still have a fair chance at the title.^[19]

An update to the sporting regulations means that technical details of the fastest lap in any session (practice or qualifying) will be made available to all teams after the session ends.^[20] This is to allow slower or weaker teams to learn how they can improve their own lap times, making the "field spread" that much smaller.

Several detailed changes to the Friday "rookie sessions" were released on 1 September 2008:^[21]

• The age limit for rookie drivers (driver had to be younger than 25), has been abolished.
• Drivers who have competed in Formula One, GP2, the IndyCar Series, Formula Nippon, or the former Champ Car World Series cannot participate in the rookie session.
• Total track time is increased from 50 minutes to an hour.
• The gap between the two half sessions is increased from 10 to 20 minutes.

Season calendar

The season started at the Circuit Park Zandvoort, Netherlands on 5 October 2008.

Further timetable details were announced on 9 June 2008.^[22]

On 21 August 2008, the Italy race at Mugello was moved back following a delay in the build schedule of the new chassis, and Zandvoort was named as the first race of the season.^[23] A replacement date was not announced.^[24]

Further timetable changes were announced on 26 August 2008. The Chinese round was confirmed to be held at Chengdu Goldenport Circuit, and swapped places in the calendar with the Indonesian round at Jakarta.^[25] Subsequent to that, the Indonesian race was moved back further, to 8 February due to track construction.^[25]

On 9 September 2008, Brands Hatch was confirmed as hosting the race in Great Britain at the end of the season. It was also announced that as a replacement date for the Mugello race could not be found, the race was removed from the season's schedule.^[16]

According to a revised international FIA calendar issued on 19 December, the A1GP season finale is to be held at Interlagos on the weekend of 15–17 May 2009.^[26]

Round 5 at Lippo Village, Indonesia was cancelled on January 16 due to the circuit missing a construction deadline, mainly caused by a heavy rain season.^[27] The Mexican round was also moved back by one week, so as to avoid clashing with a Radiohead music concert, which was to take place in the baseball stadium inside the circuit at the original date.^[28]

On February 17, 2009, the A1GP Gauteng official preview reported that the Mexico City round was no longer to take place on the weekend of March 20–22 and a replacement date was being sought.^[29] eTicket.com.mx advertised the event as it should take place on the weekend of the 22–24 May, and was confirmed on March 31, 2009, subject to the FIA-stipulated changes to the Peraltada corner.^[30][31]

On the 5th of March, the proposed Interlagos race was removed from the circuit's official calendar, presumably signalling an end to A1GP's plans to run a race meeting there.^[32]

On April 29, 2009, it was confirmed that the Mexican round was cancelled due to an outbreak of swine flu.^[33][34]

Round		Date	Country	Circuit	Pole Position	Fastest Lap	Winner	Report
	S	21 September 2008	Italy	Autodromo Internazionale di Mugello	CANCELLED			Report
	F
1	S	5 October 2008	Netherlands	Circuit Park Zandvoort	Jeroen Bleekemolen	Loïc Duval	Fairuz Fauzy	Report
	F				Fairuz Fauzy	Charlie Kimball	Loïc Duval
2	S	9 November 2008	China	Chengdu International Circuit	Adam Carroll	Adam Carroll	Adam Carroll	Report
	F				Danny Watts	Robert Doornbos	Filipe Albuquerque
3	S	23 November 2008	Malaysia	Sepang International Circuit	Neel Jani	Neel Jani	Neel Jani	Report
	F				Adam Carroll	Adam Carroll	Adam Carroll
4	S	25 January 2009	New Zealand	Taupo Motorsport Park	Adam Carroll	Neel Jani	Adam Carroll	Report
	F				Adam Carroll	Filipe Albuquerque	Neel Jani
	S	8 February 2009	Indonesia	Jakarta Street Circuit	CANCELLED			Report
	F
5	S	22 February 2009	South Africa	Kyalami	Jeroen Bleekemolen	Filipe Albuquerque	Jeroen Bleekemolen	Report
	F				Clivio Piccione	Fairuz Fauzy	Neel Jani
6	S	12 April 2009	Portugal	Autódromo Internacional do Algarve	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Adam Carroll	Robert Doornbos	Report
	F				Robert Doornbos	Adam Carroll	Neel Jani
7	S	3 May 2009	Great Britain	Brands Hatch	Adam Carroll	Adam Carroll	Adam Carroll	Report
	F				Adam Carroll	John Martin	Adam Carroll
	S	24 May 2009	Mexico	Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez	CANCELLED			Report
	F

Standings

Pos Team Drivers NLD CHN MYS NZL RSA POR GBR T. Pts Drop Pts spr fea spr fea spr fea spr fea spr fea spr fea spr fea 1 Ireland Adam Carroll Ret Ret 1 2 5 1 1 2 4 Ret 2 5 1 1 112 112 2 Switzerland Neel Jani 5 Ret 4 4 1 Ret 2 1 3 1 15 1 8 3 99 4 95 3 Portugal Filipe Albuquerque 9 Ret 6 1 4 2 6 3 2 5 3 2 5 5 92 92 4 Netherlands Jeroen Bleekemolen 4 5 6 8 1 4 6 2 81 6 75 Robert Doornbos 2 16 3 5 1 DNS 5 France Loïc Duval 3 1 2 14 4 6 47 47 Nicolas Prost 8 Ret 10 Ret 13 6 9 10 6 Malaysia Fairuz Fauzy 1 2 13 5 15 10 8 10 9 NC 8 3 43 43 Aaron Lim 16 Ret 7 New Zealand Earl Bamber 2 3 3 6 8 Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret 36 36 Chris van der Drift 7 11 5 13 8 Australia John Martin 12 4 11 6 8 4 Ret 4 12 13 10 12 7 8 36 36 9 Monaco Clivio Piccione Ret 6 9 7 12 Ret 16 Ret 5 3 5 Ret Ret 4 35 35 10 Great Britain Danny Watts 3 3 Ret 16 Ret 7 28 28 Dan Clarke 12 12 11 7 13 7 11 United States Charlie Kimball 8 10 24 24 Marco Andretti 15 8 Ret 3 11 11 17 8 12 Ret J. R. Hildebrand 4 14 12 India Narain Karthikeyan 10 10 Ret Ret 9 7 6 12 6 11 2 Ret 19 19 13 Mexico Davíd Garza Pérez 16 15 14 15 19 19 Salvador Durán 15 Ret 16 Ret 9 4 3 6 14 South Africa Adrian Zaugg 6 Ret 5 9 9 5 10 9 7 Ret 17 Ret 19 19 Alan van der Merwe 15 11 15 Brazil Felipe Guimarães 14 Ret 20 Ret Ret 7 14 15 15 2 7 DNS DNS DNS 18 18 16 Italy Fabio Onidi 7 Ret 17 17 Edoardo Piscopo 14 Ret 7 11 7 8 11 10 Vitantonio Liuzzi 4 Ret 10 9 17 Lebanon Daniel Morad 10 8 12 13 11 12 Ret Ret NC 6 Ret Ret Ret 12 8 8 18 China Ho-Pin Tung 13 9 17 12 10 9 13 Ret 16 8 7 7 Congfu Cheng Ret 14 14 Ret 19 Korea Hwang Jin-Woo Ret 7 19 17 DNS DNS 4 4 20 Indonesia Satrio Hermanto Ret Ret 18 14 13 13 13 Ret 12 13 3 3 Zahir Ali 18 9 14 10 21 Germany Michael Ammermüller 14 11 11 Ret 2 2 André Lotterer Ret 9 Pos Team Drivers spr fea spr fea spr fea spr fea spr fea spr fea spr fea T. Pts Drop Pts NLD CHN MYS NZL RSA POR GBR

Colour Result Gold Winner Silver 2nd place Bronze 3rd place Green Finished, in points Green Retired, in points Blue Finished, no points Purple Did not finish (Ret) Not classified (NC) Red Did not qualify (DNQ) Black Disqualified (DSQ) White Did not start (DNS) Withdrew (WD) Blank Did not participate Injured (INJ) Excluded (EX) Bold Pole position * Fastest lap spr Sprint Race fea Feature Race

References

External links

• A1GP official web-site