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The
new era of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport Powered by Ferrari has finally arrived,
with the first round of the 2008/09 season taking place at the popular
Zandvoort Circuit in the Netherlands
this weekend. A1 Team Malaysia
will line up on the grid alongside teams from around the world as they compete
for the pride of their nations in this unique international racing series.
Fairuz Fauzy will be in the driving seat for the Malaysian team, after solid
pace shown in preseason testing earned him the honour of stepping up to
represent his nation at the maiden event of this fourth season.
The
Zandvoort Circuit has played host to the opening round of A1GP for the last two
seasons and the Dutch circuit has always attracted a sell-out crowd. The nature
of the track combined with unpredictable weather conditions help to produce
what promises to be one of the most exciting events of the season. The 2.684
mile circuit is technically demanding, but also offers one of the best
overtaking opportunities as the A1GP cars run down to the famous Tarzan hairpin
at the end of the long pit straight. The A1GP PowerBoost, giving the drivers an
extra 50bhp, will no doubt be utilised on this section of track as the nations
battle to claim opening round points.
The
new season of A1GP brings with it some exciting changes: new venues, new teams,
new drivers and new rules which will all spice up the action on track. The most
notable new addition will be the more powerful A1GP car which, after much
anticipation, will make its race debut this weekend. Also, a recent change to
the sporting regulations for this season now means the teams will count their
best nine event scores. The final points’ standings will be calculated by
each team dropping its worst set of results from the Sprint and Feature races
of one event. With a small number of teams being forced to miss the event due
to car build delays, the introduction of this rule will ensure that the series
continues to uphold its aim of having a level playing field. The series plans
to have all its nations on the grid for the second event of this season at Chengdu, China
on 7-9 November.
Fairuz
Fauzy, who will drive for Malaysia
this weekend, says of the preparations for Zandvoort, “I’m
optimistic about the weekend as we showed strong form during testing at
Donington. With the limited track time allowed I travelled to Misano earlier
this week to spend time on the new A1GP car simulator, which was a chance to
build on the knowledge we gained at the test. We’re as prepared as we can
be ahead of the race weekend. I am looking forward to being at Zandvoort tomorrow
to learning the track and focus on the race ahead. We are aiming for points
this weekend and to develop our knowledge of the car in preparation for a
competitive season in A1GP.”
Jack
Cunningham, A1 Team Malaysia
Chief Executive, adds, “During the off season A1 Team Malaysia certainly hasn’t
been resting. We wanted to ensure that we have the best possible team heading
into this season, so we conducted a full review of our operation, which has
resulted in a reinvigorated team with the top level experience that we need to
contest this highly competitive series. We have invested heavily in our
engineering and technical staff and our tight knit team will hit ground running
at Zandvoort, hopefully carrying the momentum of Donington into this race
weekend. If we can come away from Zandvoort with points, it will be a good
start to our campaign.”
This
weekend the first official practice session has been extended to one hour 50
minutes, beginning at 09.00 on Saturday (4 October). This will be followed by
the usual second session at 11.00 – 12.30, before qualifying gets
underway at 15.45. Sunday’s Sprint race starts at 11:00 local time (10:00
BST Sunday) with the Feature race starting at 15:00 local time (1400 BST
Sunday).
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