Adrian Zaugg, who won three races for South Africa in the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport, finished eighth and second in the opening round of the brand new Auto GP series at Brno in the Czech Republic on Sunday.
A new feeder championship for GP2 and Formula One which sees the revival of the Lola-Zytec 3,4-litre V8 cars that formed the basis of the original A1GP series, Auto GP attracted a strong field of 16 cars for its debut with Swiss-based Zaugg, 23, and 19-year-old Colombian Julian Leal driving for the Italian Trident Racing team.
Zaugg qualified fourth for the first of two races, just 0.4 sec behind pole-winning Jonny Reid of New Zealand, a former A1GP driver for his country. The top 10 drivers were blanketed by just one second.
Zaugg went off the circuit on lap one as he fought for third place with Italian Luca Filippi (Euronova). He fell back to seventh and lost a further place in the compulsory pit stop, eventually finishing eighth. Team-mate Leal was 10th after qualifying eighth, while Fillippi won the inaugural Auto GP race from Edoardo Piscopo (DAMS) and Fabio Onidio (Lazarus).
Zaugg made a slow start from pole in race two and fell behind Vladimir Arabadzhiev. He came back strongly in the second half of the race to pressure the Bulgarian right to the chequered flag, finishing less than half a second behind. Third was Piscopo and Zaugg’s team-mate Leal was fourth.
The next round of the six-round series is at Imola in Italy on May 21 to 23.
STORY BY PETER BURROUGHES
No comments:
Post a Comment