A1 Grand Prix At Eastern Creak

[Neil]

Mel and I will be out there,,,,she actually is looking forward to it. Cost,,,nothing for ARDC members.

Neil.

[gtstcruiser67]

somewhere between turn 1 and turn 2

[igor]

hahha I reckon if CJ is driving Lebanon may well beat Aus

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, whadyaknow. CJ (who is Driver 1 for this weekend) didn't get beaten by Lebanon. In fact he was faster than A1 Team Lebanon by

2 PLACES

BTW, A1's are now officially the fastest things to ever race the Eastern Creek Circuit. Previous record stood at 1:22.5131 by Tim Leahey in Formula 3.

Practice session results:

Official Practice Session 1 (13.00 – 14.00)

A1 Team Driver Time No. Laps

1 Brazil Nelson Piquet Jr 1.19.266 18

2 Mexico Salvador Duran 1.20.426 18

3 France Nicholas Lapierre 1.20.627 8

4 Switzerland Neel Jani 1.21.427 12

5 New Zealand Jonny Reid 1.21.540 12

6 Netherlands Jos Verstappen 1.21.626 13

7 Italy Enrico Toccacelo 1.21.654 17

8 Portugal Alvaro Parente 1.21.872 17

9 Canada Sean McIntosh 1.22.173 15

10 Great Britain Robbie Kerr 1.22.255 17

11 USA Bryan Herta 1.22.299 13

12 South Africa Stephen Simpson 1.22.319 14

13 China Tengi Jiang 1.22.379 18

14 Ireland Michael Devaney 1.22.428 15

15 Germany Adrian Sutil 1.22.563 16

16 Pakistan Adam Khan 1.22.623 12

17 Malaysia Alex Yoong 1.22.731 14

18 Australia Christian Jones 1.22.895 17

19 Japan Hayanari Shimoda 1.22.906 18

20 Lebanon Basil Shaaban 1.23.377 20

21 Austria Mathias Lauda 1.23.667 18

22 Czech Republic Jan Charouz 1.24.776 17

23 Russia Roman Rusinov 1.24.802 14

24 India Armaan Ebrahim 1.29.531 15

Official Practice session 2 (16.00 – 17.00)

A1 Team Driver Time No. Laps

1 France Nicolas Lapierre 1.21.037 21

2 Brazil Nelson Piquet Jr 1.21.271 23

3 Switzerland Neel Jani 1.21.592 19

4 Netherlands Jos Verstappen 1.21.882 7

5 Mexico Salvador Duran 1.21.953 7

6 New Zealand Jonny Reid 1.21.956 13

7 Malaysia Alex Yoong 1.21.970 7

8 Germany Adrian Sutil 1.21.984 7

9 Czech Republic Tomas Enge 1.21.998 10

10 Canada Sean McIntosh 1.22.010 14

11 Portugal Alvaro Parente 1.22.021 3

12 USA Bryan Herta 1.22.084 17

13 Great Britain Robbie Kerr 1.22.173 16

14 Ireland Michael Devaney 1.22.174 17

15 India Armaan Ebrahim 1.22.567 25

16 Australia Will Davison 1.22.581 7

17 South Africa Stephen Simpson 1.22.785 8

18 Austria Mathias Lauda 1.23.101 14

19 Pakistan Adam Khan 1.23.127 2

20 Russia Roman Rusinov 1.23.230 9

21 Japan Hayanari Shimoda 1.23.512 17

22 Lebanon Basil Shaaban 1.23.513 19

23 China Tengi Jiang 1.23.917 2

24 Italy Andrea Montermini 1.24.118 14

[siksII]

Qualifying was ok, i made a quick gallery of some pics from today.

I would use the forum gallery but the stupid thing wont let me upload.

http://users.tpg.com.au/pradip

[igor]

Cool pics dude! by the looks of it you had quite a trip across from turn 2 to the last turn. Looking forward to tommorrow!!!

[benl1981]

put in Turn1 to get 10% off the tickets.

[siksII]

Cool pics dude! by the looks of it you had quite a trip across from turn 2 to the last turn. Looking forward to tommorrow!!!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

u have no idea(about the trip)!!! i was the one carrying bloody heavy deck chairs out of the group, they destroyed my shoulders lugging them around!!

i think the best spot is up on the hill in the middle of the track, but there is no speakers there for commentary.

its nearly 5am now i hope i can stay awake at the race 2morrow!

[siksII]

put in Turn1 to get 10% off the tickets.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

i got the sun hearald deal, two tickets for the price of one

[Beer Baron]

well it was quite a good pair of races. God damn I am sunburnt though... d'oh. I saw the japanese driver crash out. It was a pretty bad crash i hope the guy is ok. It was good that is was held at EC as you can get really close to the track/cars unlike melbourn GP where everything is set quite far back. I don't know how safe it would be spectating on the outside of turn 1 though as the fences are not very high there.

[benl1981]

not a bad day. I know about the sunburn though!!

[igor]

Yeah I got sunburned and I took the suncreen. Should have remembered to put it on my face. Real Homer moment.

I just loved how the A1s sound. So loud, so much character. Need to hear the F1s going at it. For those who have been to Melbourne, how do F1s look/sound on the track compared to A1s?

IMHO the main race was too short. I would like to see them extending it to an hour and a half or a minimum number of laps. There is too much crashing and safety car period and not enough balls out racing. Maybe some conservative behaviour can help here.

Just pondering now. The main race is so short because they don't refuel the cars. Now I wonder why that is. Maybe Sheikh has a plan of improvements and changes going into the future? Like they will bring out something new every year? Kinda make sense, because it makes it easier to market. They talk about push to pass button in the adds, next year they'll talk about "Now, with a compulsory pit-stop for fuel".

Next year I ll camp out on the turn 1 hill, I want to see the all the crashing, mwuhahaha.

[igor]

BTW, Who do you think had the most/biggest flags?

[NXTIME]

Starts wil L and ends in n?

We had a great day today, the first time I had been to a non-drag (inter)national racing meet. Sat at Turn 1 for the first race and Turn 12 for the second race.

Funniest part of the day was when a couple of mates were talking to the Premier and Emerson Fittipaldi (?) with the Shiekh next to them. One of them wanted to take a photo with the premier and Fittipaldi and casually hands the camera to the Sheikh (not knowing who he was) and asked him to take a photo of them. The Shiekh took it in his stride and agreed to take the photo. Judging by the pic, I don't think he has ever used one before.

[siksII]

well it was quite a good pair of races. God damn I am sunburnt though... d'oh. I saw the japanese driver crash out. It was a pretty bad crash i hope the guy is ok. It was good that is was held at EC as you can get really close to the track/cars unlike melbourn GP where everything is set quite far back. I don't know how safe it would be spectating on the outside of turn 1 though as the fences are not very high there.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

i also had some thoughts about the safety of some areas, fences would not do much in the event of a big off..i wish the forum gallery would work for the pics i for today.. i got no space left for webhosting..

i am a lot darker as well due to the sun exposure.. also i park3ed next to a white r33 gtst, series 2 with powerplay stickers just like my car, wondering if it was anybody here?

[-= SKiZO =-]

Not a bad afternoon of racing. Wasn't the same atmosphere or excitement as you get from say Bathurst or F1, but it was still interesting enough. Didn't like the short race format, but I'm sure they'll improve it in years to come.

I also liked how you feel alot closer to the cars at that track. Got to see the carpark and drivers at turn 2 really close. Also saw the crash of the Jap guy. Really freaky seeing that car in pieces and his engine sitting next to the cockpit!

IGOR, F1 is like nothing you've ever heard before. It is much higher pitch and you get goosebumps just hearing it and I love the quick changing down of the gears, which you couldn't really distinguish in the A1 cars.

I liked the jetcar, but was a bit of a disappointment cause they didn't run it hard.

Thankyou to "benl1981" for the code. Worked great, saved our group a bit of money.

I have a wifebeater sunburn!!

[Beer Baron]

Starts wil L and ends in n?

We had a great day today, the first time I had been to a non-drag (inter)national racing meet. Sat at Turn 1 for the first race and Turn 12 for the second race.

Funniest part of the day was when a couple of mates were talking to the Premier and Emerson Fittipaldi (?) with the Shiekh next to them. One of them wanted to take a photo with the premier and Fittipaldi and casually hands the camera to the Sheikh (not knowing who he was) and asked him to take a photo of them. The Shiekh took it in his stride and agreed to take the photo. Judging by the pic, I don't think he has ever used one before.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

haha, that's pretty funny as i watched the first race at turn 12 and the second one at turn 1 (needed to get some beers in). I did see plenty of the tree bearing flags both at turn 12 and turn 1

(for Igor) It's not quite like F1. F1 cars are (or seem) quite a fair bit bigger on the track and the sound is a whole other level again (much louder, much higher pitched scream). If you watch an F1 race on a short straight without ear plugs you will probably be able to handle about 3 laps if you are tough. After that your ears will be in bad pain every time one comes past! At the slow corners of course it's not too bad. And yes F1 cars will give you goose bumps.

A1 was good though and interesting to see cars that fast there at EC. The low fence issue is a tough one as on the one hand you want to be able to get close to the cars and be able to see them without looking through wire, on the other hand you want to live to tell people about it afterwards. It's interesting to see how high the fences at albert park have gotten in the last 8 years (notably after the death of Mr Beveridge).

[igor]

Cool cool. I ll need to get out to see the F1s one day. Not next year, maybe the year after. Take friday and monday off, start drinking on the plane and continue through the whole weekend.... And go out shopping at some stage to keep the missus happy....

[46n2]

i watched it live on Fox and the coverage was far from brilliant IMO

But despite that it was fun to watch. I hope that the Jap driver is OK. They didn't have any footage of what caused the crash, or the initial impact, but it didn't look pretty.

[Beer Baron]

he just lost it all by himself. he lost the back in just at the apex of turn 1 and got spat off towards the wall, he then hit the wall and just car just about disentegrated.

[benl1981]

Hey guys - I thought the firecracker sound on braking /decel was too much. I assume its just fuel going through and burning in the exhaust. I would have thought they could have set the engine management up better to sort this out. Hell, if they can control the cars output to 520hp and bump it up to 550hp at the push of a button you think they could sort that out.

Very fast though. Glad somebody else got the 20% off. tickets weren't that cheap - but worth it.