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A1 Grand Prix - Shanghai 14-15 April 2007
Win and second place augur well for Brands
by John Surtees
Oliver Jarvis's win in Mexico was a first for the British team. Oliver did a good drive and took his chances. But the drive obviously had other repercussions as immediately the franchise holders were caught between the success of Oliver and the disappointments they had had in recent races with Robbie Kerr.
The fact that Robbie Kerr had done such a storming drive in the feature race in South Africa after having had a practice and qualifying spoilt by mistakes made on the car, coupled with a puncture when in a challenging position in Australia and a battery failure in New Zealand got rather forgotten.
Fortunately common sense prevailed and Robbie Kerr was back in the car for China taking place in the grandeur of the enormous facility created for Formula One. The team were obviously on a high. I had been able to introduce the Young Driver of the Year Award winner, Oliver Turvey, for the rookie session with the circuit being new to Oliver and Robbie.
What a sound job Oliver did for us coming together with the 550hp car after the majority of his experience being in the 130hp BMW Junior seemed to present him with no problem. He built up his performance to where he finished third overall. What was more important was in the build up to the main event Oliver provided good feedback for Robbie to sttart his practice session.
Superb pole position
Robbie was in contention from the start and capped practice and qualifying with a superb pole position. The following day brought a change of conditions, it had rained hard overnight, and a slight adjustment in settings of wings and gear ratio. Robbie made the most of his pole position for the Sprint Race rolling start and held on to win with there being no room for mistakes because of the closeness of team New Zealand. The weather changed again and started to improve. Perhaps that was where the race was lost in that we didn’t take the opportunity to reverse the changes that had been made. However, Robbie did a strong drive, not good enough to beat the New Zealand car, which showed a considerable gain in speed over the GB car confirming to my mind that changes should have been made.
But second place was a good result and Jonny Reid and the New Zealand team had done a good job.
So it was all attention to Brands Hatch and again the question of who would drive was raised by me. I gave my recommendations and finally managed to get it confirmed that Robbie Kerr would have the opportunity of trying to bring the British car home as the first nation to win its own race. Reversing the misfortune of last year when he took the lead only to retire with a failure of a battery bringing an enormous emotional response from the crowd. The team will be at full strength with Oliver Jarvis pledging his full support in doing the Rookie session where he will do his best to bed in brake pads and discs and a feedback to Robbie and engineers on how the car and track are working therefore preparing Robbie for the second official practice where he will take over and want to make maximum use of the new tyres that he will have available. The tyres possibly having their optimum performance between the second and eighth lap.
16 April 2007
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