2006 A1 GRAND PRIX

A1 GP (2005/2006)

FEATURE RACE RESULT, FEB 12, 2006

• 1 CANADA (Sean McIntosh)
• 2 MALAYSIA (Alex Yoong)
• 3 AUSTRALIA (Marcus Marshall)
• 4 BRAZIL
• 5 SWISS
• 6 NEDERLAND
• 7 NEW ZEALAND
• 8 FRANCE
• 9 USA
• 10 UK
• 11 South Africa 12 Germany 13 Czech Republic 14 Indonesia 15 India 16 Italy 17 Portugal 18 Austria 19 Ireland 20 Mexico

TEAM CANADA RACE REPORT:

• A stunning flat-out performance from the back of the field today saw Sean McIntosh reward A1 Team Canada with their first ever A1 Grand Prix of Nations victory in Round 8 of the inaugural 'World Cup of Motorsport', hosted at the Sentul International Circuit in Indonesia.

  The 20-year-old Vancouver racer, having retired on the opening lap of the Sprint event, bounced back in style in this afternoon's Feature race, storming through the field from last on the grid, overcoming a drive through penalty in the process, to claim A1 Team Canada's maiden A1GP win before a sell-out Indonesian crowd.

  Sprint Race, 18-laps (Winner -- A1 Team France, Nicolas Lapierre) From eighth on the grid Sean sprinted off the line to snatch a couple of positions at the first corner. His race ended prematurely however just two turns later.

  Contact with the rear of A1 Team Malaysia's entry, piloted by Alex Yoong, at the third turn broke the track rod and steering arm of the A1 Team Canada Lola-Zytek, the Canadian challenge ending in retirement on the first lap.

  Feature Race, 36-laps (Winner -- A1 Team Canada, Sean McIntosh) Starting from the back of the grid courtesy of being first to retire in the Sprint race, Sean wasted little time in hustling the Canadian car back up the order. Sitting tenth after the opening lap he peeled off into the pits for his mandatory stop as the safety car deployed on lap two.

  No sooner was he back on track than he found himself back in pit-lane taking a drive through penalty having been squeezed over the exit line by A1 Team USA in the race to rejoin the action following the first stops. Bumped back down the field Sean set to work with one of the quickest cars on the track.

  A gutsy series of lap-after-lap overtaking moves, passing the likes of the USA, Netherlands, Brazil, Switzerland and Australia lifted Sean back into the top-ten and hungry for more. Climbing to fourth at the half-way marker Sean darted by Tomas Enge in the Czech Republic car at the third re-start to take third overall but with Great Britain and South Africa ahead still to make their pit stops he effectively seized the lead of the race.

  With two laps remaining Sean officially assumed the lead and duly powered his way to the checkered flag to take A1 Team Canada's maiden victory.

  Sean McIntosh: "This is unbelievable! It was an honor to be on the top step of the podium singing 'Oh Canada'. The team did a great job and I want to thank them and Wade Cherwayko for the opportunity to race for A1 Team Canada. It certainly wasn't an easy victory but it sure feels good! We made some changes to the car between races as we felt we had nothing to lose starting from the back.

  "With Patrick Carpentier taking over for Canada in the next two rounds I wanted to leave with a strong performance. I've set the standard pretty high and hopefully the team can take this momentum forward to Mexico."

TEAM MALAYSIA RACE REPORT: A Great Performance From A1 Team Malaysia

• 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.'

SPRINT RACE RESULT, FEB 11, 2006

• INDONESIA SENTUL CIRCUIT Sprint Race Results
  Pos/Team/Laps/Time/Gap. F./Gap. P./Pits
  1 FRANCE 18 24:03.360 - - 1
  2 GREAT BRITAIN 18 24:10.341 +6.981 +6.981 1
  3 MEXICO 18 24:11.387 +8.027 +1.046 1
  4 MALAYSIA 18 24:14.682 +11.322 +3.295 1
  5 SWITZERLAND 18 24:16.220 +12.860 +1.538 1
  6 IRELAND 18 24:17.094 +13.734 +0.874 1
  7 NETHERLANDS 18 24:17.864 +14.504 +0.770 1
  8 NEW ZEALAND 18 24:19.669 +16.309 +1.805 1
  9 JAPAN 18 24:22.074 +18.714 +2.405 1
  10 CZECH REPUBLIC 18 24:26.482 +23.122 +4.408 1
  11 INDONESIA 18 24:26.666 +23.306 +0.184 1
  12 GERMANY 18 24:27.761 +24.401 +1.095 1
  13 AUSTRIA 18 24:32.882 +29.522 +5.121 1
  14 ITALY 18 24:35.547 +32.187 +2.665 1
  15 USA 18 24:39.755 +36.395 +4.208 1
  16 AUSTRALIA 18 24:41.317 +37.957 +1.562 1
  17 LEBANON 18 24:48.545 +45.185 +7.228 1
  18 INDIA 18 25:03.649 +1'00.289 +15.104 1
  19 PORTUGAL 18 27:23.194 +3'19.834 +2'19.545 1
  20 BRAZIL 17 25:06.108 1 Lap 1 Lap 2
  21 SOUTH AFRICA 15 25:12.355 3 Laps 2 Laps 3
  22 CHINA 5 7:01.241 13 Laps 10 Laps
  23 CANADA 1 1:54.533 17 Laps 4 Laps 1

TEAM MALAYSIA SPRINT RACE REPORT:

• Proton sponsored A1 Team Malaysia driven by Alex Yoong made yet another improvement to their previous best race finishing performance by finishing 4th in the Sprint race of the Indonesian A1 Grand Prix round a few minutes ago.

  Yoong made his trademark good start as usual and improved to 5th from 6th on the grid and then had to survive a scare when Canada hit him from the back in the first lap.

  He later made a classic overtaking move on Switzerland down the front straight into turn one in lap seven - which succeeded to improve Malaysia to fourth.
  
  Malaysia will line up in the second row for the longer Feature race alongside Mexico which finished third. This will offer the best chance for Malaysia to make their first podium for the Feature race should everything goes according to plans.
  
  With rain clouds looming and drizzles expected for the start of the Feature race anything is possible in the 36 lap one-hour long main drawcard.
  
  France which started second on the flying start grid overtook Great Britain in the opening lap and held on to the chequered flag to record their eleventh win in the series.

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