A1 Team South Africa
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| A1 Team South Africa | |
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| Founded | 2005 |
| Seat holder | Tokyo Sexwale |
| Team principal | - |
| Race driver(s) | Adrian Zaugg |
| First race | 2005-06 Great Britain |
| Events entered | 32 |
| Championships | 0 |
| Sprint race victories | {{{sprint_wins}}} |
| Main race victories | 1 |
| Pole positions | 5 |
| Fastest laps | 4 |
| Total points | 140 |
| 2007-08 position | 5th (96 pts) |
| edit | |
The A1 Team South Africa is the South African team of A1 Grand Prix, an international racing series. Its car was first presented to the public in November 2004.
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[edit] Owners and management
A1 Team South Africa owner is Tokyo Sexwale. The Chief Executive Officer of the team is Dana Cooper and the technical and sporting manager is Mike Carroll. For the 2006-07 season South Africa have enlisted DAMS to run their car, the outfit which ran the French and Swiss teams to 1st and 2nd places in 2005-06.
[edit] Drivers
The main driver for the 2005/6 and 2006/7 seasons is Capetonian Stephen Simpson. Simpson, who has driven in the British Formula Renault championship is a former South African Formula Ford title-holder. In the 2006/7 season he will be joined by Adrian Zaugg, a former winner of the Formula BMW Scholarship and Red Bull Junior Team driver, and former British F3 champion Alan van der Merwe.
| Name | Seasons | Races (Starts) |
A1GP Title | Wins | Sprint wins |
Main wins |
2nd | 3rd | Poles | Fastest Laps |
Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tomas Scheckter | 2005-06 | 2(4) | 1 | ||||||||
| Stephen Simpson | 2005-06, 2006-07 | 10(20) | 1 | 0 | 19 | ||||||
| Alan van der Merwe | 2006-07 | 4(8) | 0 | ||||||||
| Adrian Zaugg | 2006-07, 2007-08 | 16(32) | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 120 |
[edit] Complete A1 Grand Prix Results
(key), "spr" indicate a Sprint Race, "fea" indicate a Main Race.
[edit] Team History
The Team began its 2005-2006 campaign on a low by crashing in the British Sprint race and finishing 24th. They would score 5 points later on by finishing 6th in a highly dramatic Feature race. The German round was not a good one for them by only finishing in 12th place in the Sprint race and retiring in the feature race, scoring no points whatsoever. They scord one point in the Portuguese Sprint race by finishing 10th but they once again retired in the Feature race. They scored no points in Australia by retiring from both the Sprint and Feature race. They once again retired from the Malaysian Sprint race but finished in 12th place in the Feature race. The Dubai Round saw a breakthrough in results, they once again scored a 12th place finish in the sprint race but in the feature they were promoted constantly due to penalties given to cars in front of them as well as retirements to finish on the podium in 3rd position, a good end to a tough 1st segment of the season.
In the first race of the new year in the South African Grand Prix the team retired with a mechanical failure in the Sprint race and started last in the Feature race but due to good driver skill and a very high retirement rate they finished the Feature race in 5th position to score another 6 points, this would turn out to be their last points of the 2005-06 season. The next race in Indonesia they once again retired in the Sprint race but due to a mixed up Feature race they ended up leading with 2 laps to go but had to pit for their mandatory pit stop and finished only ahead of Great Britain in 11th place.
At the next round in Mexico they scored a pole position but got penalised and demoted to 3rd on the grid, they held on to that position until they got another mechanical failure and then finished a low 18th in the feature. At the rain affected US GP at Laguna Seca they finished in 11th in the Sprint race but again retired in the feature race. at the season finale in China they ended their season on a somewhat good note compared to some of the other races and finished the Sprint race in 11th and the feature race in 14th, the first time they would finish both races since the Dubai round, 4 months previously.
The 2006-07 A1 Grand Prix season was an improvement of results for them and the rookie driver, Adrian Zaugg won their first Grand Prix in the Netherlands Sprint race in his first ever A1 GP race but in the feature he made a mistake and crashed out of the lead on the first lap. Stephen Simpson who drove the next round retired in the Czech sprint but finished 11th in the feature race. at the Beijing round Zaugg retired due to a crash in the Sprint race but due to high retirement rate he finished 5th in the Feature race. In Malaysia he was 13th in the sprint race and 12th in the Feature race. Alan van der Merwe drove the next three rounds and scored a 9th place in Indonesia and a retirement in the Indonesian feature race, a 7th and 16th in New Zealand followed and he finished 16th in the Australian sprint followed by a retirement in the Feature race.
Zaugg was back in South Africa and was 7th in the Sprint race but crashed out in the Feature race. He would go on to score the teams best overall race weekend in Mexico by finishing 4th in the sprint race and 3rd in the feature race. Alan van der Merwe was back in China where he was 8th in the sprint race and 12th in the Feature race. At the season finale at Brands Hatch Zaugg was back again and finished 15th in the Sprint race but had a massive accident with Australia on the opening lap of the Feature race. They improved in the standings from 17th in 2006 to 14th in 2007.
Adrian Zaugg is the only driver to drive for South Africa in the 2007-08 season and he has proved his skill. He got a double pole in the opening round at Zandvoort, finished 1st in the Sprint race and 2nd in the feature race. He got pole for the Czech sprint but could only finish 4th in the Sprint race and after a mistake in the pilane could only manage 19th place. They were 10th in the Malaysian Sprint race and then spun out of the feature race. Another retirement followed at the Zhuhai Sprint race and then finished 3rd in the Zhuhai feature race. They came 4th in the New Zealand Feature race and then got 7th in the New Zealand Feature race.
At the rain affected Australian GP they came a distant 7th place after a mistake in the Sprint race but Zaugg then dominated the feature race to win by almost half a minute in torrential rain. He made a mistake in Sprint qualifying for the South African GP and will line up in last place and he could only manage 14th place in qualifying for the Feature race, they ended up 12th in the sprint race and crashed on a restart with 5 laps left of the feature race causing a multiple pile up but the race was red flagged and with the results being counted a lap before the incident they were classified 6th. In Mexico they took pole for the sprint race and qualified 10th for the feature race, in the sprint race he retired with a puncture and came 6th in the feature race.
[edit] External links
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