1950 Dutch A1 Grand Prix

The 1950 Dutch A1 Grand Prix was the second meeting of the inaugural A1 Grand Prix season. England's Peter Whitehead took his and his country's maiden pole position. The race was won by Robert Manzon for France.

Race


As at Silverstone, the pole sitter would loose out to the driver starting alongside as England's Peter Whitehead lost out to Italy's Piero Taruffi. Whitehead was passed by Germany's Paul Pietsch on lap 5 but the two of them managed to close back up to Taruffi providing a very close three way battle during the first stint of the race.

During the first round of pit-stops, Whitehead had a slow stop as he would all the way through the race and lost out to both Prince Bira for Thailand and France's Robert Manzon who had spent the first stint climbing through from his disapointing grid position of 9th. This left Taruffi and Pietsch battling it out for the lead for the second stint though Bira, Manzon and Whitehead would remain within 10 seconds of them.



The second round of pit-stops saw Prince Bira take the lead, he had made his stop earlier, allowing him some clear space on the track before the other front runners made their stops. Taruffi was now running second with Manzon and Pietsch just behind them. The final round of stops saw Manzon take the lead while Bira also dropped behind Taruffi and found himself being reeled in by both Pietsch and Whitehead. The leaders would remain in that order till the finish though Pietsch would drop out with a valve failure on lap 71.

This had been a much cleaner race than the British Grand Prix had been with most accidents only involving one car. However the behaviour of the backmarkers regarding being passed by the leaders wasn't much better this time with several drivers again receiving penalty points on their racing license.

Race Classification
Fastest Lap Desmond Titterington 1:32.121 Lap 49

Penalty Report
Drivers receive points on their race licence if they are deemed by the stewards to be driving in an 'unsporting manner'. Points are usually given for causing avoidable collisions, pitlane infractions or impeding fastest cars while being lapped. If a driver collects 12 points throughout the season then they are given a three month ban from racing in the series. Points are reset to zero after each season. Fines can also be given.