Weber: considering future www.a1gp.com

This unusually hard penalty means that we will have to seriously consider how we see our future in this series.

Willi Weber
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• Germany

A1 Team Germany boss Willi Weber has claimed that he his seriously considering the team's future participation in the 'World Cup of Motorsport' after the penalties they incurred in Malaysia.

Making his race debut for the defending champions, Michael Ammermuller was demoted from third to 16th place in the Sprint race at Sepang following a collision with fellow newcomer Robert Wickens of Canada.

And matters hardly improved in the Feature race, firstly when Ammermuller was in receipt of a drive-through penalty for an over-ambitious move on Great Britain's Oliver Jarvis.

Germany were subsequently excluded from the finishing classification altogether after becoming involved in another skirmish with the Czech Republic's Erik Janis.

Weber said he felt the incidents involving Ammermuller were little different from several others which occurred in an at-times fraught race.

Aggrieved

And he was particularly aggrieved that the decision to demote Germany in the Sprint race came only after the Feature event - before raising the possibility that the team might leave the series altogether.

"I find it extremely negative that the sprint race was assessed differently in light of the main race, long after the sprint race had finished," he was quoted as saying on www.autosport.com.

"I also don't understand why we were excluded from the main race, particularly as everybody involved could continue after the collisions, plus we had already been penalised extremely hard with a drive-through penalty.

"This unusually hard penalty means that we will have to seriously consider how we see our future in this series."

Nevertheless, Weber said he was pleased with the performance given by former Red Bull F1 test driver Ammermuller, especially given his relative inexperience - the 21-year-old having completed just one test for the team prior to their 2006/07 championship-winning season.

"Michael has my complete and utter support," he said. "I'm delighted that he is a member of our team, and furthermore, he will continue to do so.

"He sat in our car for the first time on race weekend after having tested just once for us nearly 15 months ago. I was very pleased with his first race for our team."

Racing incident

Ammermuller himself labelled his lap 19 coming together with Jarvis as a racing incident.

"I wanted to overtake the British car after my pit stop in Turn 1, but I was too optimistic and we both spun," he said.

"Nevertheless, our pace was good at the weekend, and we could have brought home a top result without the penalty."