A1GP: Malaysia Qualified With Best Ever 7th

Saturday in Malaysia - Greg Wheeler, Fairuz Fauzy and Alex Yoong

in dry-wet qualifying session of Malaysia A1GP

Sepang, Malaysia - Saturday, 19 November 2005 - It was an exciting afternoon's qualifying which saw the dark clouds threatening during the first of four qualifying segments with Malaysia, piloted by Alex Yoong lying in 16th position after the first timed lap. When the window opened for the second qualifying segment all the cars filed up at the pitlane, jostling to get out to beat the rain - it was still dry. Midway into the flying lap the heavens opened with some drivers spinning out. Malaysia's Yoong kept his cool and still beat his first qualifying time to haul the A1 Team Malaysia to a splendid best ever qualifying in 7th to allow Fairuz Fauzy to line up on the fourth row for tomorrow's Sprint race.

After that the results of the third and final flying lap timed sessions were just academic with drivers taking to the track in soaking conditions which turned corners into streams, to just test out the wet conditions of the Sepang International Circuit at the Malaysia A1 Grand Prix of Nations, Sepang International Circuit, 2005 presented by Astro.

A1 Team Switzerland took it's first ever A1GP position over France in second followed by Ireland, Great Britain, New Zealand and Netherlands in 3rd to 6th position.A1 Team Malaysia, are the only team that will take advantage of A1 Grand Prix's unique rule which allows them to swap drivers between qualifying and the two races. While Yoong qualifiedin seventh position, Fairuz will drive in tomorrow's Sprint Race and Alex in the Feature Race.

Alex described the conditions of the second run as very treacherous, saying, "We have expected more from the team as we have three sets of new tyres and my first run was exploratory as I had not done any practice in new tyres. The rains, however, came down hard by turn 7 of my second qualifying and cars were snaking everywhere ahead of me. I am therefore pleased with the seventh for Malaysia as despite of running half the lap in the wet we still beat the first run's time."

Malaysia is in good shape for both the Sprint race as well as the Feature race. The Sprint race will be contested over 50 miles lasting up to 30 minutes in duration. With a rolling start at 13.30 local time, tomorrow's race will be run over 15 laps of the full Sepang International Circuit. The outcome of the race determines the grid position for the Feature race which will start at 15.00 local time with a standing start. The Feature race will be run over 100 miles (30 laps) lasting up to 60 minutes in duration.

Max Revson - Racing For Malaysia

MALAYSIA - QUALIFYING RESULTS
A1 Team/Driver/Aggregate Time
1 Switzerland Neel Jani 3.48.962
2 France Alexandre Premat 3.49.868
3 Ireland Ralph Firman 3.49.969
4 G.Britain Robbie Kerr 3.49.972
5 New Zealand Matt Halliday 3.50.569
6 Netherlands Jos Verstappen 3.51.036
7 Malaysia Alex Yoong 3.51.199
8 Brazil Nelson Piquet 3.51.398
9 Portugal Alvaro Parente 3.51.547
10 Italy Enrico Toccacelo 3.51.894
11 Indonesia Ananda Mikola 3.51.996
12 USA Bryan Herta 3.52.013
13 S. Africa Stephen Simpson 3.52.118
14 Pakistan Adam Khan 3.52.200
15 India Armaan Ebrahim 3.52.829
16 Germany Timo Scheider 3.53.267
17 Mexico Luis Diaz 3.53.656
18 Czech Rep Tomas Enge 3.53.766
19 Japan Hayanari Shimoda 3.53.948
20 Austria Mathias Lauda 3.54.989
21 China Tengyi Jiang 3.56.047
22 Canada Sean McIntosh 4.00.397
23 Lebanon Khalil Beschir 4.17.659
24 Australia Will Davison 4.17.860