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A1 Team Korea make debut in A1GP |
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Saturday, 04 October 2008 |
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A1 Team Korea took part in its first official practice and qualifying sessions in the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport today, ahead of tomorrow’s A1GP Zandvoort, Netherlands. Korea joins nations such as China, Italy, Malaysia and Monaco in the global racing series, which visits 10 exciting venues around the world.
Taking part in today’s track action, 25 year-old Jin-Woo Hwang became the first Korean to represent his nation in motorsport. Hwang, who has previous experience racing in Japanese GTs, made the most of the two hours practice time on Saturday morning, gaining experience of the new A1GP Powered by Ferrari car in both wet and dry conditions. With only a limited amount of laps run in testing, the new A1GP car was an unknown entity to the team and driver, but unlike other drivers, Hwang brought the car home undamaged ahead of qualifying. In place of the four separate qualifying segments that usual decide the grid for the Sprint and Feature races, qualifying at Zandvoort consisted of just a one hour session, with no restriction on the number of laps each car competed – allowing the teams to maximise running in the new cars. The times from the one hour session will set the grid for the Sprint race. Positions for the Feature race will now be set by finishing positions of the Sprint race. Conditions were dry and blustery for the one hour qualifying session, with 15 cars taking to the track. Exploring the limits of the Korean car, Hwang spun early on, with the car stranded out in the middle of the track. With no break in qualifying the car could not be recovered back to the pits, meaning the team were only able to complete three laps in total. With such a small window to set a quick time, A1 Team Korea qualified 15th for tomorrow’s Sprint race. Reflecting on the team’s first day of official track action, A1 Team Korea seat holder Jung- Yong Joshua Kim said, “Today has been important day in Korean motorsport. The car looked fantastic out on track and considering his experience in this type of car and inexperience on the track, Jin did a good job. This weekend is really about learning rather than results, but I’m still very excited ahead of the team’s first race tomorrow.” A1 Team Korea driver Jin-Woo Hwang added, “It was a difficult day today, but I still enjoyed it. The track here is very nice, but very challenging as well. We weren’t able to complete many laps so I had little time to learn the circuit. The car is very good though, so I am looking forward to racing tomorrow.” Korea will race for the first time tomorrow at 11.00 local time when the A1GP cars take to the track for the Sprint race. The longer Feature race will take place from 15.00 – 16.10.
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