2008 Donington Superleague Formula round
| 2008 Donington Park Superleague Formula round Superleague Formula round UK |
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Circuit Map
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| Date | August 31, 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Location |
 Donington Park, Leicestershire, England
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| Course | Permanent racing facility 2.500 mi (4.023 km) |
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| Laps | 28 & 22 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Pole position | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Team |
 Beijing Guoan
|
Davide Rigon | |
| Time | 1:18.529 | ||
| Podium (1st race) | |||
| First |
Beijing Guoan
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Davide Rigon | |
| Second |
 A.S. Roma
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| Third |
 Tottenham Hotspur
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Duncan Tappy | |
| Fastest lap (1st race) | |||
| Team |
Beijing Guoan
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Davide Rigon | |
| Time | 1:20.183 (on lap 10) | ||
| Podium (2nd race) | |||
| First |
 Sevilla FC
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Borja García | |
| Second |
 CR Flamengo
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Tuka Rocha | |
| Third |
Liverpool F.C.
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Adrián Vallés | |
| Fastest lap (2nd race) | |||
| Team |
 PSV Eindhoven
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Yelmer Buurman | |
| Time | 1:40.926 (on lap 22) | ||
The 2008 Donington Park Superleague Formula round was the inaugural round of the Superleague Formula championship, with the races taking place on August 31, 2008. Seventeen football teams were represented on the grid, with a win each for Beijing Guoan and Sevilla FC.
The first ever qualifying session for Superleague saw the introduction of a new qualifying system. Following a random draw which split the seventeen-car field into two groups, the fastest four qualifiers from each progressed into the knockout stages to decide places 1 to 8 on the grid. This meant that in Group B, fifth placed Al Ain (Andreas Zuber) and sixth placed Borussia Dortmund (Nelson Philippe) would both miss out on qualifying for the knockout stages, despite recording a time some four tenths of a second faster than fourth-placed Group A qualifier Galatasaray S.K. (Alessandro Pier Guidi). After negotiating their way through the knockout stages, Sevilla FC (Borja García) and Beijing Guoan (Davide Rigon) would meet in the final. In the one-lap shootout, Rigon came out on top by 0.822 seconds and would become Superleague's inaugural pole-sitter.
The race began with a rolling start, to eradicate a potential chink in the 750 bhp car's armour, and would also delay the introduction of pitstops until the next round. From the start, the Olympiacos car of Kasper Andersen got a fantastic run from fourth on the grid, and was alongside Rigon as the grid headed for Redgate. However, he ran wide and fell back to fourth behind García and a fast-starting Yelmer Buurman in the PSV Eindhoven car. This would become fifth by the end of the lap, as Duncan Tappy also got by, in the Tottenham Hotspur machine. The safety car was deployed on lap three, as A.C. Milan and CR Flamengo had both gone off at Coppice with engine failures on the first and third laps respectively. There were further problems down the field with a midfield incident between Philippe and Andy Soucek in the SC Corinthians car and both would later retire from the race. would also become a factor in the race, having started sixth in the A.S. Roma car, moving up to third which became second, as García had to shift to manual gear-shifting after developing a problem on down-shifts. Toccacelo did get to within a second and a half of Rigon, but the Italian in the Chinese team's car would hold on, to be the first race-winner of the series. Toccacelo finished 2nd, while Tappy just held off Buurman for the final podium spot. Star of the race though, fell to Adrián Vallés. Having missed qualifying due to an electrical problem, the Liverpool F.C. car charged through from 17th on the grid, to finish fifth ahead of the other finishers Zuber, Tristan Gommendy (F.C. Porto), Ryan Dalziel (Rangers F.C.), Max Wissel (FC Basel 1893) and the troubled García. Of the seven retirees, six were down to technical problems.
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