Race Review: A1 Grand Prix Of Nations, Sepang, Malaysia

Date - 20th November 2005 - Malaysia saw the best race of A1 GP so far with lots of wheel to wheel action. A1 Team France, with Alexandre Premat driving, finished first starting from pole. Second was Team Switzerland with Neel Jani at the wheel and the Czech Republic team got their first pole position with Tomas Enge driving.

The action started as early as lap 2 with A1 Team China having a huge accident after coming into contact with A1 Team Portugal's Alvaro Parente. Team China's Tengyi Jiang was soon out of the car after it had rolled over several times before coming to a stop on it's wheels. Old rivals, in more ways than one, Team India ran into the back of the Team Pakistan car; the result was Adam Khan's (Pakistan) race coming to an end as he could not make it back to the pits with Armaan Ebrahim (India) carrying on but only to be disqualified later on as he had received some illegal help from the marshals when they gave him a push-start.

Both A1 Team Netherlands and A1 Team Brazil had a disastrous start in failing to get off the line and then having to fight their way forward through the pack. Nelson Piquet Jr. did very well in the end to score 1 point for his team by finishing in 10th place. Team Mexico and Team Australia, with Luis Diaz and Will Davison the respective drivers, were doing battle for quite some time for 14th place.

There was another battle further up the field between Team Italy, USA, Canada and the Czech Republic all vying for a possible podium spot. At one stage the racing was as close as 1.5 seconds covering all 4 cars! It eventually ended in ruin for A1 Team Canada when Sean McIntosh tried an overtaking manoeuvre on A1 Team Italy's Enrico Toccacelo. He later admitted it was an error in judgement on his part that saw his race end prematurely.

The home fans were very pleased with their driver, Alex Yoong, for the experince he showed in matching A1 Team Malaysia's best finish when he snatched 5th place from A1 Team New Zealand on the last lap.

Qualifying: A1 Grand Prix Of Nations, Sepang, Malaysia

Date - 19 November - 24 A1 race teams participated in the first session of qualifying today here at Sepang International Circuit. Neel Jani has taken Team Switzerland's first A1 pole after some tricky driving in the wet condtions.

Malaysia qulaified the best they have to date so far in 7th with Alex Yoong at the wheel but they will be the first team to take advantage of being able to swap drivers between qualifying and racing as Fairuz Fauzy will race for them tomorrow.

Here is the starting line-up for tomorrow's sprint race: