Motorsport: Gremlins ruin Kiwi challenge

Team Switzerland's Neel Jani leads Ireland's Adam Carroll towards the end of the feature race. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Everything was looking so good for New Zealand in the run up to the fourth round of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport in Taupo.

However, motorcar racing is a fickle mistress and Chris van der Drift will today be wondering which motorsport god he's offended. For the second time this season, van der Drift was put off his stride by the electrical gremlins.

After a tidy qualifying session on Saturday, where he put the car sixth on the grid for the sprint race and 10th for the feature, van der Drift managed fifth in the sprint and a disappointing 14th in the feature.

When he last drove, in China, the computer malfunctioned and he had to turn the car off and back on again before he could get going.

This weekend it was the anti-stall device that caused a hiccup in the sprint race and a bigger problem in the feature race, when Black Beauty had to start last.

"You can't really do too much about it, it's not as if you can plan for it," said van der Drift. "It's pity for the team and the fans that we couldn't get a good result because we all worked pretty hard for it. When something like this happens at the beginning of a race you're stuck there and you can say goodbye to your race there and then."

It wasn't as if van der Drift didn't have the pace over the weekend, as was evident in the sprint race where he was only three-tenths of a second off the fastest lap of the race.

"We're getting there slowly but we've still got a bit to go to challenge the front guys," he said.

Some good may have come out of all this, as for the first time the A1GP organisers have allowed cars a practice outside a race weekend. Normally, the cars are locked away straight after a race weekend and the mechanics and engineers are not allowed access to them until just before the following round.

The dispensation came about because the Irish, New Zealand and Lebanese teams were having issues with the anti-stall device.

"The electrical problem was evident in the sprint race but the Magneti Marelli people [technical partner to A1GP] told us everything was okay for the feature race," said A1 Team New Zealand's seat holder Colin Giltrap. "The Irish were lucky to get away with it during their last pit stop in the feature race. Their's was only a short problem, ours was much longer. That's motor racing I guess and you've just got to get on with the next one.

"We've managed to get an extra test here [Taupo] tomorrow and Jonny Reid hasn't driven the car yet so we'll give him a drive tomorrow. It's a special dispensation for a driver who hasn't tested before or a rookie.

"It came about because the Irish team have been employed, because they're the fastest, by Magneti Marelli, because they're trying to sort the exact same glitch that happened to us."

When Giltrap found out the Irish were testing, he used his considerable influence to allow the Kiwi team to have a go as well. And as Reid hasn't driven the car the organisers agreed to it.

The round win went to Switzerland with a second in the sprint race and a first in the feature race. It's Ireland, though, who have extended their lead at the top of the table to 13 points with a sprint win and a second in the feature, ahead of Switzerland, 52 points, and Portugal, 49 points. New Zealand has slipped to sixth with 35 points.