After accumulating strong points in Malaysia, Portugal and Ireland, have moved to the head of the points table, with the latter having an eight-point advantage. The teams seem to be in top form, and have managed to snag three of the last four race wins.
Apart from the lead, both teams have a further advantage, as their standings are compounded, due to the fact that none of the teams of have points to drop from the current totals. Further, all their chief rivals are set to lose points, due to A1 GP’s new rule, that a team counts only its best nine out of ten events in the final championship total. Due to the fact that Ireland and Portugal did not score any points at the opening race at Zandvoort, their total points will remain the same. Despite these obvious advantages, both team drivers state that since only three of the season’s ten events have taken place, there is still time for other teams to catch up. Filipe Albuquerue, Portugal’s driver said, “We’ve definitely started to get a gap now, but I don’t want to think about the championship. We need to keep getting on the podium and scoring points and only look at the championship in the last two meetings. It’s way too early now.”
He further added, “We just have to not make mistakes. Considering we weren’t quite fast enough to win in Malaysia, a fourth and second was very good for us there. If I’m the fastest then I need to grab the win - but if not, then the key is not to throw away points. To win the championship, you need to know how to win races, but first you need to know how to lose them. In Sepang, we needed to be calm and tell ourselves that we didn’t have the chance to win and that we had to learn how to lose and not throw away those points for second. That’s the difference between winning championships or being a guy who just is dumb and fast.”
The point leader, Ireland’s team driver, Adam Carroll also remarked along the same line, warning that there was a long way to go in this season’s championship battle. He said, “We have to just keep pushing and it’s going to be a long hard championship,” he said. “There are some very quick drivers and some very good teams. You only have to look at the lap times from last weekend to see how close we all are. Last season we finished sixth in the championship and scored more points than ever before.”
“Now is the next step. We have a bunch of people here capable of wining the championship and personally I’m feeling good. It’s fantastic for all the team to come away from Malaysia to lead the championship, but we are going to need the mid-season break considering how much we’ve still got to go.”