2007–08 A1 Grand Prix season

The A1GP season 2007/2008 was held from 29 September 2007 until 4 May 2008, a total of ten tracks. As world champion, Switzerland emerged.

Overview

The 2007/2008 season was the third of the A1GP series. Team Switzerland as a regular driver sat with Neel Jani at the end with a total of four race wins through, which meant the first title for the Swiss. Runner-up was once again the New Zealand team, which was also four victories, the third overall place was once again the UK with two racing successes. Also were able to record race wins, the teams from Germany ( twice), France, India ( twice), Ireland, Canada, South Africa ( twice) and the USA.

Before the second race weekend at Brno was officially announced that the series had been completed with an engine supplier Ferrari contract with effect from the following season. It should include a term of six years.

In the third season of environmental issues moved in motor sports in the focus of the A1GP organizers. They called the campaign THINK - Greener Racing into life, the continued gross CO2 emission reduction targets of the series and wanted to increase the awareness of environmental protection. In this sense, a fuel with 85 percent ethanol content was tested before the season, but this proved to be unsuitable for racing. One concentrated in the sequence on the adjustment of the engines on a fuel with 30 percent ethanol, which also problematic designed; as the premiere use of the kick-off event in Zandvoort had to be moved to the race weekend in Taupo. For passenger transport in and around the paddock should also only electric scooters are used.

Car

As a unit car came to be the Lola - Zytek with Cooper Tires tires used, see A1GP cars. From the race weekend in Taupo he was operated with (supposedly greener ) E30 fuel.

Team

On the season, 22 teams took part (see team and driver overview). Singapore and Greece were among the series no longer present, new teams were not at the start. All teams competed throughout.

Team and driver overview

• Explanation: Small -written drivers took part at each weekend exclusively on the second or third workout.

Race Calendar

The calendar of the 2007/2008 season consisted of ten race weekends.

Before the season was on 28-29. August and 18-19. September two official tests held at Silverstone.

A planned for early November race weekend in Asia (probably Sentul ) was removed from the calendar.

Rule Changes

Of the four qualifying sections continue ministered to the first two determine the starting order of the Sprint race and the remaining two of the main race, in each case the fastest of the two hours was crucial. This was achieved by a team that is strong in the sprint race in sections no longer automatically held a good starting position for the main race.

In order to upgrade the sprint race, there were now as many points to achieve as in the main race, which were distributed according to the new scoring system in order 15-12-10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1. Also new was that was awarded for both races separated one point each for the fastest lap. Also, now a third of the ausgelobten for a weekend prize money was paid out in the sprint race - so far there had for placements in the top ten no prize money given.

In the main race, the pilots recently had two and not just do a mandatory pit stop, which could be completed as before only in specified time windows. The first was between rounds eight and 16, the period of the second window was communicated to the teams at each race weekend just before the start of the feature race. Thus the teams were now forced to adapt their strategies in the short term.

The design of the racing lives has been changed slightly: The sprint race was now allowed a maximum of 29 minutes plus one lap, take the feature race 69 minutes plus one lap.

Before the season, the " rookie tests " were introduced that made possible the first time, private testing of the teams with the A1GP car. Such a rookie test was allowed once a team before the season starts for drivers who were not previously competed in A1GP, are performed on a utilized during the season not for A1GP race track.

Team Lebanon sat down with a private test in Zhuhai once on the sports regulations of time, Chris Alajajian and Khalil Beshir were subsequently excluded from the rookie training at the corresponding race weekend.

India was removed from the list of " motorsport developing countries ".

Results

Reporting

In the German-speaking world to be the pay-TV channel Premiere broadcast the series, but the main event was only shown live. The qualifying was taken completely out of the program, the Sprint race has now been aired as a short summary just before the main race. For race weekend in Sepang also the Swiss Sports Television went into the A1GP transmission. It showed, first on U1- TV and later on Star TV, the main race either live or recorded.