German teenager is all talent

[davewilson]

THE teenaged star Nico Hulkenberg took another step closer to a Formula One career while comfortably winning the Australian round of the A1 grand prix circus at Eastern Creek yesterday.

Hulkenberg, 19, already anointed by Michael Shumacher's manager Willi Weber as the next German motor sport star, drove two impeccable races yesterday to dominate the meeting.
Hulkenberg won both the sprint and feature races with consummate ease to amass four grand prix round wins out of the seven so far and a back-to-back double after his triumph in the previous round in New Zealand.

Weber has hinted he will push for a Formula One spot for Hulkenberg as soon as 2008 if the young German continues his form in the A1 circus and the coming Euro F3 championship.

The only challenge to his dominance yesterday came from the Kiwi driver, Jonny Reid who won the start in the feature race from second on the grid but lost it again in the compulsory pit stop.

Hulkenberg, given a crucial advantage by his team, simply drove away from Reid to eventually win by 6.7 seconds with the Chinese driver Ho-Pin Tung claiming an historical third place for that country's first podium finish of the series.

The Australian team finished a miserable 14th with Karl Reindler never in the hunt from a grid position of 18.

The feature race, after a procedural sprint race earlier in the day, finished tamely with substantial gaps between the leading six cars. All the drama transpired early. The first lap had not been completed before the Canadian driver James Hinchcliffe was sent off in spectacular fashion after being squeezed for room by the Indonesian driver, Christian Murchison in what was later deemed a racing incident.

The accident guaranteed Hinchcliffe space on the evening TV news, something the South African driver Alan van der Merwe would have happily avoided watching after he exited the race by running into the back of the Pakistan car on the following low speed safety laps.

After the compulsory pitstop Hulkenberg was never threatened and told merely by his pit crew to "stay concentrated and try to build the lead".

Behind him Tung provided the highlight with a 23rd lap passing move on the Dutch driver Jeroen Bleekemolen as audacious as anything seen on a racetrack.

Confident he had the speed, the 24-year-old Chinese driver took the wide line around the first turn to pull off a spectacular manoeuvre which had race commentators raving.

The only bright spot in Reindler's day was that he finished on the lead lap, the last of the unlapped cars.


The Stig