Championship decided in the penultimate round
Jay Price from New Orleans, Louisiana, driving for the Qatar Team, has become the third driver from America to capture the Formula 1 title after winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Saturday.
“I spent many years racing in smaller countries winning titles in Mexico and Cuba trying to keep my career alive and it truly paid off in the end.” said Jay. “The people from the Qatar Marine Sports Federation gave me the chance to prove myself and I will always be in their debt for their faith in my abilities. Now it is time to have fun in Sharjah and go for another win.”
While Jay had a perfect start from the pole and lead every one of the 50 laps to give him a total score of 105 points, his chief rivals were the defending world champion, Sami Selio from Finland, and Swedish driver Jonas Andersson who were both chasing Jay for the title. Unfortunately they were slow away at the start with Sami immediately falling back to fourth and Jonas trying to stay in the top three. In the end Selio was fifth and Andersson retired late and classified 10th.
Team Abu Dhabi had a great day in front of its home crowd with Ahmad Al Homeli starting seventh and finishing second despite losing his cockpit canopy. He now moves into second place on the overall standings with 55 points while his team mate Thani Al Qamzi finished his first race of the season in third place and now lies 14th in the points table.
Australian driver David Trask of the Trask Brothers Racing effort just missed the podium in 4th position sitting fifth now in the title with 41 points. His older brother Bob took home ninth position fighting up from 15th position.
The tough and challenging 2.175 kilometre circuit was again a boat eater as only 12 of the 22 drivers finished the event. Italian champion Guido Cappellini was the first to drop out after getting involved in a first corner collision which damaged his right front sponson for the four time winner of this race.
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Jay Price’s third career victory was the most dominating performance of the season with the “Ragin Cagin” winning by 23.76 seconds over Ahmad Al Hameli. The season moves on to the eighth and final round on December 12 for the Grand Prix of Sharjah from the Khalid Lagoon just outside Dubai. Although the world championship is now decided, three drivers are separated by just five points in the battle for runner-up.
