Earl Bamber and the Kiwi A1GP team had a forgettable finish to the season at Brands Hatch. Photo / A1GP.com
New Zealand's A1GP season finished with a whimper today, with the team car beached in gravel traps at the Brands Hatch circuit in England in both the sprint and feature races.
The British round became the finale of the 2008/09 championship after this month's scheduled season-ender in Mexico was cancelled
due to the H1N1 flu outbreak.
Overall, New Zealand finished seventh, a tumble down from their second placing for the last two years in a season team manager described as "frustrating".
Adam Carroll handed Team Ireland their first A1 GP title on Sunday when he won the final sprint and feature races .
New Zealand got off to a solid start in the shorter sprint race, after starting from sixth place. However, a radio call from the team instructing Bamber to "push" mid way through the race to find more speed was confused with a call to "pit" for the compulsory pitstop.
This resulted in Bamber arriving in the pitlane early, and New Zealand's crew having to scramble to service Black Beauty.
Tragedy struck a few laps later however, when Lebanon spun in front of New Zealand with five laps remaining, forcing Bamber to take avoiding action and spinning Black Beauty into the gravel trap and out of the race.
In the longer feature race, New Zealand started strongly. Bamber headed into the first corner as part of a group of cars running four wide, but kept clear of trouble to hold sixth place.
An incident behind New Zealand brought out the safety car on the opening lap, after China and India tangled. When the race resumed, Bamber was under pressure from Australia and had to work to open up a small gap before he spun out of the race at the Westfield corner at Brands Hatch.
New Zealand just managed to hang on to seventh position in the points standings with 36 points, six points behind sixth placed Malaysia.
Bamber was disappointed with the team finish today.
"Lebanon spun in front of us and we had nowhere to go. It was an unfortunate way to end the sprint race," he said.
"I've loved my time driving for New Zealand in the A1GP and would really like to come back for the team, hopefully in a stronger position with what we've learnt this season."
- NZPA
