2005 FORMULA A -WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP - BRAGA (PORTUGAL) –23RD/24TH/25TH OF SEPTEMBER

THE HEATS: LITCHFIELD AND LANCASTER MAKE IT TO THE THIRD ROW

The absolute protagonist of the heats was Mgm – Birel driver Riki Christodoulou: he won the first three heats and only an engine failure stopped him in the 4th. The penalties he received took him back from a well-deserved pole position to the fifth row. The Englishman defeated all his most determined opponents, including Ardigò, who started the heat run together from the internal position and gained some metres in the first laps. With the new rules and regulations that allow the punching of only two units, an engine failure is definitely very penalizing in the scoring of a race. And in fact, it was to heavily compromise the English driver’s ambitions. It went better for Mark Litchfield, on the other hand, who achieved great rankings up to the 5th placing on the starting grid for the Pre-Finals. A superb Lancaster qualified right behind the driver of the Pf International Team. The Birel Motorsport driver proved to be both efficient and fast: he scored three fifth positions and a third one. In the Pre-Final, he was able to start among the top drivers, in order to try and gain a good position right from the beginning. At the top of the penalty ranking, instead, were Ardigò, Mortara and Oakes, the most dangerous opponents for the Birel squad. Unfortunately, Sauro Cesetti was missing from the top sections of the ranking. Starting from the back rows, he made up ground twice to the 7th placing, but had then to withdraw from a heat, which costed him over 50 penalties. He was forced to start from the 13th row, while ahead of him Umegaki took up the 20th position. Among the Birel drivers, Jimenez attained a good position, too, (12th), while some technical problems excluded Risitano and Antonucci from the qualified drivers. Gaggianesi, Lammers and Manetti were excluded as well, whereas Renaudi and Bianchi made it to the last row by a hair’s breadth.

THE QUALIFIERS | THE HEATS | THE PRE-FINAL | THE FINAL