Carella eats into Price’s lead after China GP

The Qatar Team’s Jay Price missed a crucial turn buoy and was disqualified from fifth position in yesterday’s dramatic Grand Prix of China on the Liu River in Liuzhou. The 2008 World Champion held third position heading into the final lap, but the officials’ decision cost him vital championship points and enabled team mate Alex Carella – who started the race from the back of the grid following an engine failure - to take points for fifth position and move to within three points of his colleague in the World Championship standings.Team Abu Dhabi’s Ahmed al-Hameli and Thani al-Qamzi dominated the race, with al-Hameli dropping to second on the penultimate lap to enable al-Qamzi to take maximum points and maintain his title challenge.“It was one of those weekends where we had no luck at all,” said Khalid bin Arhama al-Kuwari, head of formula racing at the (QMSF), which runs under the presidency of Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor al-Thani. “Jay missed a turn buoy and that has cost him dearly and Alex was forced to start at the back and did well to get back into contention at the end. It was not our lucky day, but we will regroup and look forward to Sharjah and Abu Dhabi.”Carella, who qualified second for the race, developed an engine problem in the morning’s practice session and was forced to start from the back of the grid and promoted Price to fourth behind Ahmed al-Hameli, Phillipe Chiappe and Thani al-Qamzi. The race had to be restarted after a jump-start by Jonas Andersson and a yellow flag was raised following an opening lap collision between Phillipe Tourre and Valerio Lagiannella, which sheared the engine clean off the Italian’s Singha F1 Racing Team boat. Price reached the 10th lap four seconds behind the leading UAE driver, al-Hameli, after the restart and Carella continued his slow climb towards the top three and held ninth. The leading drivers held station through 17 laps, as Price appeared content to shadow the Team Abu Dhabi duo in his DAC to conserve a potential 12 championship points. Carella managed to pass Francesco Cantando on lap 23 and climbed to eighth overall. Al-Hameli slowed to enable al-Qamzi to take his first victory in 27 races and Carella reached the chequered flag with a failing engine in sixth position and climbed to fifth on news of Price’s disqualification. Meanwhile, Qatar’s Khalid Saleh al-Shamlan qualified second and finished third in the second of the weekend’s UIM F-4S races to maintain third in the points’ standings after 10 races. Sweden’s Bimba Sjoholm was fastest in the morning’s F-4S free practice session and went on to qualify in pole position for the race.  The Qatari failed to overhaul Sjoholm or Britain’s Matthew Palfreyman during the actual race and reached the chequered flag in third position to maintain a similar position in the championship standings.