KEY POINTS:
TAUPO - German Nico Hulkenberg gave a magnificent display of precision driving to romp home with a double victory at the New Zealand A1 Grand Prix, the sixth round of the World Cup of Motorsport, in Taupo.
Hulkenberg, who started from pole position in both the sprint and feature race, began each event cleanly and sped away to leave the chasing pack, led by France's Loic Duval and New Zealand's Jonny Reid, to scrap for the minor podium positions.
Duval was second in both stanzas of the round, with Reid forced to take two thirds after finding no way around the Frenchman in either race.
Hulkenberg clocked 19 minutes 49.089 seconds for the 15-lap sprint race and one hour three minutes 38.1 seconds for the 50-lap feature race.
By also clocking the fastest lap of the day of 1min 14.742sec, Hulkenberg gathered maximum points from the weekend to extend Germany's championship lead.
Germany have 65 points followed by France on 46 and New Zealand on 43.
The biggest losers were Britain and Mexico, who started the round in second and third overall, respectively, but ended it in fourth and fifth.
Hulkenberg, 19, said he found a good rhythm once he got in front.
"I found a good pace so I could make a little gap," said Hulkenberg, who was a little unwell before the race after catching a bug.
He had drunk lots of water before racing and had lasted okay.
Reid, who finished 19.927sec behind the German in the feature race, was left to rue mistakes made in qualifying which placed him on the second row of the grid.
"We knew grid position was going to be important and if not for hitting the kerb in the third session of qualifying, arguably we would have done better," Reid said.
There was no denying the effort he put in to pry second off Duval in the feature race on a track made treacherous by dust either being blown on to the surface by a strong wind or left by cars returning after excursions into the dirt.
With Hulkenberg building a comfortable cushion in front, Reid tried daring moves on Duval on the outside line at the top of the back straight on the 24th and 28th laps but a lack of grip saw the Frenchman hold him off.
"I gave it 110 per cent today," Reid said.
"It was tough work out there. Duval had the aerodynamic grip and I was sort of sliding around and that (grip) was basically what I lacked.
"If I could have got in front, I knew I could pull away gradually.
"I think I was quicker overall but just could not convert that into second place."
Reid said the nature of the new Taupo circuit was "go-kart like, very tight with lots of corners and one long straight".
"On the long back straight, it is hard to get close enough to pass at the end up the inside.
"Maybe if I got past I might have been able to put pressure on Nico but we'll never know.
"Loic made a couple of mistakes but I couldn't capitalise.
"Off line, it was so dirty and slippery. I tried to move on the outside into turn 11 before the back straight but I lost the back straight away because I was on the high line.
"It was really difficult because as soon as someone kicked some dust on to the surface, it was easy to slide off."
Late on, back marker mix-ups presented another chance but despite pressure from Reid, Duval did not miss a beat passing slower cars.
Duval also said the track was difficult.
"It was really dirty and the smallest mistake could see you lose lots of time."
He was happy to score two seconds in his A1 series debut was looking to improve on that in coming rounds.
Reid said there was obvious disappointment that he could not repeat his double win in Indonesia in the previous round.
However, he drew positives from achieving New Zealand's second best overall A1 result which he could take to the next round at Eastern Creek, Australia, on February 4.
- NZPA
