A1GP cancels Mexico race

29/04/2009
NEWS STORY

A1GP World Cup of Motorsport has been forced to cancel round eight of the 2008/09 season, A1GP Mexico City, after the recent outbreaks of swine flu and the advisory from the UK Foreign Office to cancel non essential travel to the country.

"To say we are disappointed to have to make this call is an understatement," said A1GP Chairman, Tony Teixeira. "When the news of the health problems broke last week we made sure we kept ourselves up to date with the latest information. It soon became obvious this was not an isolated health risk, and when the UK Foreign Office put out its advisory and the World Health Organization raised the level of influenza pandemic alert that was when we had to make our decision. We must have the safety of all members of the A1GP community as well as the thousands of loyal fans in Mexico City as our prime concern," he added.

The cargo was due to be flown out to Mexico directly after the Brands Hatch race and so this was another factor in the decision. "If we had flown our cars out and not been able to send the teams to run them it would have been a waste of time and money. However, this cancellation does not impact on the future of the series and once Brands Hatch is over we shall be concentrating on Season Five, for which plans are already well advanced," said Teixeira.

Consequently, this weekend's race A1GP Brands Hatch, Great Britain will be the final round of the championship. Going into this race there are three teams A1Team Switzerland, A1 Team Ireland and A1 Team Portugal who can still win the coveted trophy. This will mean the title race will go down to the wire as none of these teams can win the title in the Sprint race.

The permutations are numerous and complicated meaning it will be a real cliff hanger and are as follows:

Switzerland will win the title if the following cases BOTH happen

Ireland scores less than 3 points or Switzerland outscores Ireland by at least 2 points

Portugal scores less than 7 points or Portugal doesn't outscore Switzerland by more than 2 points

If scores are tied Switzerland need to maintain its better tie-break results - presently Switzerland has four wins to Ireland's three and Portugal's one

Ireland will win the title if the following ALL happen

Ireland scores at least 3 points

Ireland doesn't lose more than 1 point to Switzerland

Ireland doesn't lose more than 4 points to Portugal

If scores are tied Ireland needs to have better tie-break results - presently Switzerland has four wins to Ireland's three, and Portugal's one

Portugal will win the title if the following ALL happen

Portugal scores at least 7 points

Portugal outscores Switzerland by at least 3 points

Portugal outscores Ireland by at least 5 points

If nations are tied on points at the end of the season, the number of victories will determine the champion. If that is the same, it is number of second places, then third places and so on until a winner is determined.

The current standings can be found here