A Great Performance From A1 Team Malaysia

Malaysia flag flies proudly on Indonesian podium with Alex...(click image to enlarge)

As they grab their first podium 2nd in Indonesia's Feature Race

A1 Team Malaysia's Alex Yoong was elated with his podium second for the team in the Feature race run over 36 laps of Bogor's Sentul circuit in the A1 Grand Prix of Nations Indonesia today.

His last podium was when he won in the Porsche Cup Asia race in Macau Grand Prix in 2003 and the one before that was at the Formula 3000 Donnington Park round in 1999 when he mounted the second step of the podium.

Yoong said after the race, "I'm elated for the team. The car was very strong. We should have pitted earlier though, we could have been even closer. This is what the Series is all about, there was so much overtaking, the cars are strong and built to overtake. Jos Verstappen and I had a real cat and mouse fight as we made our way through the field. It is such a good result for the team and for our new sponsor Proton. Having Proton on board has made such a difference for the team, as we have been able to concentrate on the racing rather than getting to the next race."

The race was full of incidents throughout the Feature race and there were three involving the Malaysian team but the team got off cleanly from all these three incidents. The first was when France's Nicolas Lapiere who clipped the back of the Malaysian car and lost it's rear wing in lap 3, then on lap 8, Indonesia's Ananda Mikola also drove into the right rear of the Malaysian car and spun and finally from Jos Verstappen of the Netherland team who looked like he turned in to Alex, made contact and also spun off the race on lap 28.

Yoong had moved up to second in the early part of the race and then dropped to 15th after a mediocre pitstop. They climbed up steadily partly by taking advantage of cars dropping off from the wayside but mainly from overtaking cars in tandem with Verstappen.

Malaysia was just 0.9 of a second from leader Canada in the penultimate lap but had to ease off to preserve their second spot due to heavy batterings from the three coming together with the other cars as described earlier.

Malaysia consolidated it's 9th overall position in the championship with 49 points after Indonesia and have a realistic chance to improve to 6th by catching Netherlands who are just 4 points away.

A1 Team Canada fought their way from back of the grid to win the A1 Grand Prix of Nations, Sentul Circuit, Indonesia giving them their first win of the season. In front of a packed grandstand of 32,000 spectators, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and government representatives including the Ministers for Sport and Tourism, A1 Grand Prix laid on a spectacular race, action-packed from start to finish.

It was a great weekend for newcomers to A1 Grand Prix as Marcus Marshall for A1 Team Australia and Christian Fittipaldi for A1 Team Brazil finished third and fourth respectively. Fittipaldi's spectacular drive put them back up above A1 Team Great Britain at third place in the championship points standing.

First-time winner, Sean McIntosh, A1 Team Canada: 'It's just an unbelievable result after the Sprint race. I shot myself in the foot in the Sprint race, and came to win from the back, even with a drive through penalty. It wasn't an easy decision to pit early and then having to do the drive through penalty I lost all the ground I made up. I overtook about six cars after that and by the end of the race there were quite severe vibrations in the tyres.'

Finishing on the podium in his first outing for A1 Team Australia, Marcus Marshall said: 'It feels really good to be on the podium, especially after I didn't even know whether I was coming or not. We really struggled in the dry and a bit in Qualifying but we kept pushing all weekend. We never gave up, and although there was too much wing on the car, which meant I was losing time on the straights, I was setting good times in the other sectors. I'm really stoked for the team, Fosters and everyone at home. A big hello to everyone in Australia.'

The ninth round of A1 Grand Prix, the World Cup of Motorsport will be held at Parque Fundidora Monterrey, Mexico on 24 - 26 February 2006.

End

INDONESIA - FEATURE RACE RESULTS

A1 Team/Driver/Time/Gap

1 Canada Sean McIntosh 55.55.779

2 Malaysia Alex Yoong 55.57.710 +1.931

3 Australia Marcus Marshall 56.08.396 +12.617

4 Brazil Christian Fittipaldi 56.09.779 +14.000

5 Switzerland Neel Jani 56.12.288 +16.509

6 Netherlands Jos Verstappen 56.17.625 +21.846

7 New Zealand Matt Halliday 56.17.998 +22.319

8 France Nicolas Lapierre 56.18.477 +22.698

9 USA Philip Geibler 56.22.092 +26.313

10 Great Britain Robbie Kerr 56.38.748 +42.969

11 S.Africa Stephen Simpson 57.10.293 +1.14.514

12 Germany Timo Scheider 57.28.763 +1.32.984

13 Czech Republic Tomas Enge 35 laps 1 lap

14 Indonesia Ananda Mikola 35 laps 1 lap

15 India Armaan Ebrahim 35 laps 1 lap

DNF
Italy Max Busnelli 31 laps 5 laps

Portugal Alvaro Parente 31 laps 5 laps

Austria Mathias Lauda 24 laps 12 laps

Ireland Ralph Firman 21 laps 15 laps

Mexico Salvador Duran 18 laps 18 laps

China Tengyi Jiang 11 laps 29 laps

Lebanon Basil Shaaban 7 laps 29 laps

Japan Hayanari Shimoda 0 laps 36 laps

CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS AFTER INDONESIA

1 France 132

2 Switzerland 104

3 Brazil 70

4 Great Britain 68

5 New Zealand 61

6 Netherlands 53

7 Ireland 50

8 Portugal 50

9 Malaysia 49

10 Canada 42

11 Australia 37

12 Czech Republic 31

13 Mexico 28

14 Italy 26

15 South Africa 20

16 Germany 15

17 USA 15

18 Indonesia 10

19 Austria 9

20 Japan 8

21 China 6

22 Pakistan 4