2008–09 A1 Grand Prix of Nations, China


The 2008–09 A1 Grand Prix of Nations, China was an A1 Grand Prix race, held at Chengdu Goldenport Circuit, Chengdu, People's Republic of China.
All proceeds from this race were donated to the Sichuan Earthquake Relief Fund, following the earthquake which devastated the region in May 2008.

Drivers

After missing the first race due to a lack of cars, A1 Teams Great Britain, India and Mexico took part in this race. Both A1 Team Pakistan and A1 Team Germany will not make their season debut until the fourth round at Taupo. Team Pakistan require more changes to their chassis to render it suitable for their lead driver Adam Khan, while Team Germany is undergoing management restructuring.
The status of A1 Team Canada was not announced, but they were removed from the race's drivers list on the A1GP website front page, and did not make an appearance. Their status for future events is still unknown.
↑ Karthikeyan and Andretti were granted special dispensation to participate in the rookie session as neither team had completed as many testing miles as the other teams with the new car. Karthikeyan and Andretti are veteran drivers in one of the four series which their drivers may not compete as A1GP rookies.

Qualifying

Due to a delay in recovering the Italian car after spinning into a gravel trp during the first qualifying session, the second qualifying session was cancelled, meaning all times from Q1 set the field for Q1, with Ireland taking their first ever pole position, ahead of The Netherlands and Switzerland.
Q4 was stopped briefly after a spin for France. The session was resumed with teams able to make a run in time. Danny Watts for Great Britain took pole ahead of Ireland and Portugal.

Sprint Race

For safety reasons, a pit stop was not required for the Sprint Race. In lap 2, Brazil is slowing and the Safety car is on while Felipe Guimarães reach the pits. In the same lap 2, China spun and lost some positions but finally catch up and pass Korea in lap 7. when the Safety car is out, the order was Ireland, Netherlands, Great Britain, Switzerland, South Africa, Portugal, New Zealand and France. Those positions remain until the end of the race with the fastest lap for Adam Carroll.
PosTeamDriverLapsTimePoints
1 IrelandAdam Carroll1822'58.74010 +1
2 NetherlandsRobert Doornbos18+2.0378
3 Great BritainDanny Watts18+14.3616
4 SwitzerlandNeel Jani18+14.6195
5 South AfricaAdrian Zaugg18+20.1084
6 PortugalFilipe Albuquerque18+20.4753
7 New ZealandChris van der Drift18+27.2242
8 FranceNicolas Prost18+27.9231
9 MonacoClivio Piccione18+30.378
10 IndiaNarain Karthikeyan18+32.268
11 AustraliaJohn Martin18+33.198
12 LebanonDaniel Morad18+34.293
13 MalaysiaFairuz Fauzy18+34.665
14 ItalyEdoardo Piscopo18+36.541
15 USAMarco Andretti18+38.102
16 MexicoDavíd Garza Pérez18+42.511
17 ChinaHo-Pin Tung18+49.611
18 IndonesiaSatrio Hermanto18+1'04.128
19 KoreaHwang Jin-Woo18+1'06.171
20 BrazilFelipe Guimarães14+4 laps

Feature Race

The second pit-stop window for the Feature Race was set for Laps 24–32.
PosTeamDriverLapsTimePoints
1 PortugalFilipe Albuquerque511:11'23.17915
2 IrelandAdam Carroll51+0.57112
3 Great BritainDanny Watts51+4.80210
4 SwitzerlandNeel Jani51+7.1578
5 MalaysiaFairuz Fauzy51+13.3026
6 AustraliaJohn Martin51+15.5445
7 MonacoClivio Piccione51+16.2364
8 USAMarco Andretti51+16.6903
9 South AfricaAdrian Zaugg51+18.0302
10 IndiaNarain Karthikeyan51+18.5791
11 New ZealandChris van der Drift51+19.675
12 ChinaHo-Pin Tung51+20.126
13 LebanonDaniel Morad51+22.580
14 IndonesiaSatrio Hermanto51+31.285
15 MexicoDavíd Garza Pérez50+1 lap
16 NetherlandsRobert Doornbos50+1 lap+1
17 KoreaHwang Jin-Woo50+1 lap
Ret FranceNicolas Prost37Spin
Ret ItalyEdoardo Piscopo30Mechanical
Ret BrazilFelipe Guimarães13Mechanical