Asian Motor Sports

Graham Rahal, driver for A1 Team Lebanon this weekend, ably demonstrated his potential today at Laguna Seca, running in second place for nearly half the Feature race distance, until a spin put him off track.

In the Sprint race he also ran well, sitting comfortably in ninth spot until his retirement due to an incident with the German car. Rahal started from the pit lane at the back of the grid for the Feature race, with the A1 Team Lebanon crew showing their excellent teamwork repairing fairly extensive damage from the earlier Sprint race.

The team opted to start the race on dry tyres, one of only three teams to opt for these. Within the first two laps all teams except Lebanon pitted during a safety car period, most having started the race on wet tyres.

Rahal was at the front for the restart and the soon-to-be A1 Grand Prix champions, France, just behind. The French car quickly took Lebanon, but it was the only car that managed to pass Rahal for the ensuing 15 laps, with Rahal showing his natural talent as he lapped quickly ahead of the grid of older, experienced drivers. Unfortunately damage from the earlier race affected the steering of the car as the race progressed. Although Rahal struggled on, these problems caused two spins for the young driver, the second one putting him out of the race.

Nonetheless, the A1 Team Lebanon had already made his mark and impressed everyone with his race pace. The grid for the Sprint race was formed in bright sunshine, but just five minutes before the start of the race, a torrential downpour saw all the cars change from dry tyres to wet. Without any wet practice sessions prior to the race, none of the teams had a chance to prepare their cars for these conditions.

A1 Team Lebanon started from their best grid position of the season so far, on the sixth row. Rahal attacked at the start, passing the cars of Germany, Australia and South Africa before the end of the first lap. Italy caused a safety car period soon after the start with the Team Lebanon driver lying eighth. He dropped a few places after running wide, but recovered well to be just outside the top ten in eleventh spot, a position he retained until an incident with the German car under the safety car put Team Lebanon out of the race.

Rahal summed up his day saying:

“The sprint race was really difficult; there was so little visibility I could only really follow by the red brake lights of the car in front. We had a great start though and passed a few cars, but the wet weather really created problems. We damaged the car in the incident with Germany, which gave the team plenty of work between the races, but they managed to fix it for us.