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Switzerland takes Feature Race win

NEWS STORY
22/02/2009

Switzerland's Neel Jani claimed victory in this afternoon's Go-GP.Org A1GP Gauteng, South Africa Feature race with what his seatholder, Max Welti, would most likely call a 'gorgeous' drive from fifth on the grid. The win means Neel Jani equals the all-time win record for a driver, Nico Hulkenberg's record of nine wins for Germany.

Jani finished 13.176 seconds ahead of Brazil's Felipe Guimarães, the 17-year-old putting in a mature drive to record the team's best result of the year at the Kyalami circuit despite crashing heavily at the end of yesterday's qualifying. Pole-sitter Clivio Piccione finished in third for Monaco after losing the lead to Switzerland in the first round of pit stops and then dropping behind Brazil after making a mistake.

As the Feature race got underway, Switzerland made a fantastic start to move from fifth to second into turn one. A1 Team Ireland's Adam Carroll was making a move around the outside of Malaysia for fourth when the pair touched resulting in the championship leader being beached in the gravel and out of the race.

Brazil made a good start, running in sixth by the end of lap one, while the battle for third was on as Malaysia began putting pressure on New Zealand's Earl Bamber. Bamber's defensive driving kept Malaysia at bay until lap four when Malaysia touched the rear wheel of New Zealand with Bamber spinning into the gravel. Fauzy was then forced to pit with a suspected slow puncture from the incident and after changing a front tyre, he returned to the track, although now back in 16th place. A few laps later Fauzy returned to the pits for his mandatory stop and with four new tyres returned to the race track. On the same lap, Mexico and France also came together at the same corner ending both their races.

On lap nine the first mandatory pit stops began with race-leader Monaco not having the quickest of stops. Switzerland's slick team-work enabled Jani to leap-frog Piccione and take the lead in Kyalami. Despite having a good stop, Australia had a disaster in the pit lane when John Martin stalled as another car came across in front of him when he was about to leave his pit box. He eventually got going but dropped down from third to 15th as a result.

USA's Marco Andretti was the last to pit, but on rejoining lost four positions as South Africa, Germany, Lebanon and Indonesia all found their way past the American car.

Local A1 Team South Africa's Adrian Zaugg was looking strong, having moved up from 15th to ninth, but on lap 17 coasted back to the pits and out of the race with gearbox problems.

Daniel Morad was putting in a good performance in the A1 Team Lebanon car to get passed Germany for seventh. Morad made his move around the outside of Michael Ammermüller through turn one before taking the inside line through turn two and the position.

On lap 19 the order was now Switzerland from Monaco, Brazil, Netherlands, Great Britain, Portugal, Lebanon, Germany, Indonesia and China.

As the race reached half distance, Brazil began closing the gap to Monaco. The Brazilian car was only 0.466-seconds adrift on lap 24 with the 17-year-old finally capitalising on a mistake by Piccione to take second position.

In the second round of pit stops Switzerland had a ten second lead and another clean stop brought Jani out with a comfortable lead.

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