10 December 2006 - A1 Team New Zealand takes double in A1GP at Sentul

In two races packed with drama and excitement A1 Team New Zealand scored their first two ever A1GP wins, taking the double in style.

This morning’s 15 Sprint race went almost without any incidents, except for a spin of Ho-Pin Tung of A1 Team China and Malaysia’s Alex Yoong pushing A1 Team Netherlands Jeroen Bleekemolen off the track on the opening lap. So the Sprint race unfortunately did not go to well for the Playseats backed teams, with A1 Team Malaysia in twelfth, Netherlands in thirteenth, the Czech Republic in sixteenth and China in 21st.

The Feature was completely packed with excitement, action and drama. The start, which had been moved forward because there was a forecast for heavy thunderstorms and rain in the late afternoon, had to be delayed right after the installation lap because of a earlier arriving thunderstorm. When the race started conditions were extremely wet and visibility was very poor.

On a track which was slowly getting dryer A1 Team Germany took the lead from New Zealand, but after the pitstops it was New Zealand which closed in on Germany and retook the lead. A1 Team Netherlands made a late stop and were the first team to switch to slicks, a gamble that would pay off as the track was getting more dry each lap. As some teams had to come in a second time to switch to slicks, A1 Team Netherlands moved up the order more and more. At the end of the race there was lot’s of things happening inside a few laps. First A1 Team Canada lost their rear wheel coming up the start finish straight and a spin of A1 Team Great Britain only moments later caused a safety car situation. Then A1 Team USA spun behind the safety car and directly after the restart A1 Team Switzerland and A1 Team Brazil collided. New Zealand however was able to fend off a pushing Germany and take the double, with France clinching third.

A1 Team Netherlands finished the race in fifth place, but  following an A1GP Stewards´ enquiry, it was ruled that the team did not respect the pit stop procedure and made its mandatory pit stop outside the pit stop window, which was between laps eight and 20. The team was found to be in breach of article 219 of the A1GP Sporting Regulations. The team is however protesting this decision of the Stewards, because they feel that the pitstop was made before completing lap 20 on the track.

 

A1 Team Netherlands team principal Jan Lammers; “We waited to the last possible moment with our mandatory pitstop to maximize on the weather conditions. This worked out perfectly and we were the first to go out on slicks. This brought us in reach of the podium. A super job from our quys! To our astonishment we were excluded after the race by the Stewards. They had concluded that we had breached the regulations as we allegedly had not made our pitstop before the completion of our 20th lap. Our difference of opinion is that we feel that the regulations (see below) state that we have to make a pitstop before the completion of lap 20 on the track. We completed our 20th lap in the pit lane. The definition of pit lane according to the regulations is; ‘The lane by which the Cars can access the Pits and access and exit the Track’. Our conclusion; it is impossible to enter the pit lane without exciting the track and therefore we did not complete our 20th lap on the track but in the pit lane. Our lap time on lap 20 also shows that the lap was completed partly on track and partly in the pitlane. We will try and convince the organisation again that we acted in good faith and according to the regulations. It will take some time before everyone has agreed on this issue, but it is my duty to fight this decision. I am sure that there will be a supplement to the regulations, but we do not want to pay the price for this learning process and want our fifth place finish reinstated”.

The other Playseats backed teams had a difficult Feature race as well, but both Malaysia and Czech Republic managed to finish inside the points in fifth and seventh, after the exclusion of A1 Team Netherlands. China moved up some places but had to settle for fourteenth in the end.  

A1 Team Malaysia driver Alex Yoong; “We struggled the whole weekend and in the first race the car was really not competitive. When it rained in the Feature race I was quite happy, because we were just not quick in dry conditions. The problem was however that we started on brand new tyres and then we had to change to the tyres that we had started with at Sepang. Those were very bad. First we thought we just had the wrong tyre pressure at Sepang, but immediately the car was two seconds slower. It cost us the race, so we had to gamble and come in again to put slicks on. It was not ready for slicks yet, but we were faster on slicks than with wets”.

A1 Team China driver Ho-Pin Tung; “We had bad luck throughout the weekend. We had a brake problem in qualifying, a puncture in free practice and just before the start I had no electrics in the car, so I could not see shift lights or anything else. But if you start relaxing and ease into the race it is ok. The first stint was really good, went from P21 to P8 and than had some bad luck with the tyres”.

A1GP will now take a mont’s break for the holidays. After five races Germany is leading the Series. The sixth round of A1GP World Cup of Motorsport will take place in Taupo, New Zealand from 19 to 21 January 2007

9 December 2006 - A1 Team New Zealand takes pole in close qualifying

The battle for pole position in tomorrow’s A1GP Sprint race at Sentul was decided in the final segment, with New Zealand securing their second pole of this A1GP season by only 34 thousands of a second on aggregate.

Throughout the four 15 minute qualifying segments it was very close, which was to be expected as almost the whole field had been close together in the official practice sessions as well. This was also proven by the fact that both France, that dominated last season, and Switzerland, runner up last year, only managed to qualify seventh and eleventh on the grid.

Throughout the day it was extremely hot and increasingly humid at the Sentul circuit, situated amidst a dense rainforest and volcanoes. Right after the end of qualifying though a thunderstorm came in. So tomorrow, especially during the Feature race, which starts at 15.00 hours changing weather conditions could come into play.

Unfortunately the Playseats backed teams were not able to mingle in the battle for pole today, with A1 Team Netherlands in tenth, followed by A1 Team China in twelfth, Malaysia in thirteenth and the Czech Republic in fourteenth.

A1 Team Netherlands driver Jeroen Bleekemolen; “We set the same laptimes three times out, there just wasn’t much more left. That’s the way it is, not very bad but certainly not good enough”.

A1 Team Malaysia driver Alex Yoong spun off in the second segment; “I was just pushing a bit too hard. It has not been an easy weekend for us sofar, but qualifying wet a little bit better”.

Ho-Pin Tung of A1 Team China made his qualifying debut, but was not too pleased with the result; “We had some problem with the throttle getting stuck while braking, this we only discovered after three segments”.

Tomorrow the Sprint race will start at 11.00 hours local time, the Feature race will start at 15.00 hours.

8 December 2006 - A1GP World Cup of Motorsport returns to Sentul

For the second time within one year A1GP has returned to the Indonesian circuit of Sentul for round five of the A1GP season. Last February the circuit some 42 km outside the capitol Jakarta was host for the eighth round of A1GP’s inaugural season.

Today the Rookie session and the first free practice session were held under very warm conditions. The sun was out and the track was completely dry, but shortly after the end of the official free practice session this afternoon a severe thunderstorm hit the circuit

A1 Team Great Britain was fastest in the Rookie session of this morning, which ran almost incident free. Of the Playseats powered teams A1 Team Czech Republic was fastest in third place, followed by Malaysia in tenth, China in eleventh, the Netherlands in twelfth and in 20th New Zealand that suffered some damage after Chris van der Drift spun off the track early in the first session.

In the regular free practice session, that ran incident free, A1 Team France was the top runner with Nicolas Lapierre being the only driver below the 1’18.00. The top 14 was close though, all within one second.

The Czech Republic finished the one hour session in fifth, followed by The Netherlands in twelfth, China in fifteenth and New Zealand in sixteenth. Malaysia was not among the top runners as well as Alex Yoong finished in 18th.

Apart from the two A1 Team Netherlands drivers there was other ‘Dutch’ contention in both sessions today. Chris van der Drift, who was Dutch roots, went out in the Rookie session for New Zealand and German F3 Champion Ho Pin Tung, who also has got a Chinese nationality, made his debut in A1GP today, driving both sessions.

Ho Pin Tung was pleased about his A1GP debut for China today; “Of course it is not too easy getting into the car and driving against others who already competed in some A1GP races. But it isn’t going too bad, especially in the free practice session it all went quite well. I think that I was competitive on used tyres. On the new ones unfortunately I went off, otherwise I could have been more up front. Tomorrow in qualifying we will see. This is totally different from what I am used to in Formula 3. I am getting to grips with the car quite quick now and am no longer just a passenger. It is getting better every time”.

 

26 November 2006 - A1 Team Switzerland takes pole in exciting qualifying A1GP Sepang

In an exciting qualifying session for the A1GP Sprint race at Sepang tomorrow A1 Team Switzerland took pole position with Neel Jani.

Three out of four Playseats teams were inside the top 10, with China in fifth, Netherlands in sixth, and Malaysia in seventh. The Czech Republic finished in 14th.

With rain threatening throughout the qualifying almost all teams went out early in the session to get at least one dry run done. There was some excitement straight away as Germany and Ireland had an incident on track. This did not prevent Germany from setting a fast time.

In the second session it still remained dry so again most teams went out straight at the start of the session. Again there was a slight incident when South Africa and USA collided on track.

As skies above the circuit became more threatening by the minute and it looked like rain would only be a matter of minutes it was still dry on track. Because all teams went out on used tyres there were no major changes in the provisional grid. Of the top 10 teams, only Malaysia managed to move up one place. The fourth run saw most teams make one last try to further improve on their position. The two top runners, Switzerland and New Zealand, stayed in to save tyres. The track proved to be slower though so no one was able to improve on their aggregate time.

A1 Team China driver Confu Cheng; “In general it was quite ok, I was a bit disappointed not to finish inside the top three. In the first qualifying session I made a mistake that probably cost me halve a second and in the last session we had new tyres so we should have had some advantage there, but the track was slower. We are happy with fifth. It could have been a little bit better, but let’s see what we can do tomorrow”.

A1 Team Netherlands driver Jeroen Bleekemolen; ““Off course I am very happy with this, because yesterday and this morning we were running quite bad. When you see where we are now, this is just super. We have just been able to improve so much. Everyone has worked very hard to get the car ready each time, yesterday evening and this morning before qualifying.. That is just perfect. We have done this as a team and this is why we do this, these are the nice moments. The race tomorrow will be warm, but that won’t be too much of a problem. It could go in any way, it could rain and on used tyres the it’s a complete different running order. It will be close though, that is sure”.

A1 Team Malaysia driver Alex Yoong: “A typical qualifying for us here. Conditions changed and we did not have the right tyres on at the right time. We saved our new tyres for the end and I think that the first two sessions were quicker. But seventh is ok and this is a good track for overtaking so I think we can make up some places tomorrow. Racing in front of a home crowd is very special, hopefully they can spur us on to a good result”.

A1 Team Czech Republic driver Tomas Enge; “Last year we qualified here in the back as well and finished third in the Feature race. I am looking forward to the race, our biggest weapon is the race itself and consistency. We should have been faster, but unfortunately this was not possible today”.

Qualifying results A1GP Sepang

1 Switzerland Neel Jani 3:43.014

5 China Congfu Cheng 3:44.884

6 Netherlands Jeroen Bleekemolen 3:44.932

7 Malaysia Alex Yoong 3:45.068

14 Czech Republic Tomas Enge 3:46.407

25 November 2006 - A1 Team Switzerland takes pole in exciting qualifying A1GP Sepang

In an exciting qualifying session for the A1GP Sprint race at Sepang tomorrow A1 Team Switzerland took pole position with Neel Jani.

Three out of four Playseats teams were inside the top 10, with China in fifth, Netherlands in sixth, and Malaysia in seventh. The Czech Republic finished in 14th.

With rain threatening throughout the qualifying almost all teams went out early in the session to get at least one dry run done. There was some excitement straight away as Germany and Ireland had an incident on track. This did not prevent Germany from setting a fast time.

In the second session it still remained dry so again most teams went out straight at the start of the session. Again there was a slight incident when South Africa and USA collided on track.

As skies above the circuit became more threatening by the minute and it looked like rain would only be a matter of minutes it was still dry on track. Because all teams went out on used tyres there were no major changes in the provisional grid. Of the top 10 teams, only Malaysia managed to move up one place. The fourth run saw most teams make one last try to further improve on their position. The two top runners, Switzerland and New Zealand, stayed in to save tyres. The track proved to be slower though so no one was able to improve on their aggregate time.

A1 Team China driver Confu Cheng; “In general it was quite ok, I was a bit disappointed not to finish inside the top three. In the first qualifying session I made a mistake that probably cost me halve a second and in the last session we had new tyres so we should have had some advantage there, but the track was slower. We are happy with fifth. It could have been a little bit better, but let’s see what we can do tomorrow”.

A1 Team Netherlands driver Jeroen Bleekemolen; ““Off course I am very happy with this, because yesterday and this morning we were running quite bad. When you see where we are now, this is just super. We have just been able to improve so much. Everyone has worked very hard to get the car ready each time, yesterday evening and this morning before qualifying.. That is just perfect. We have done this as a team and this is why we do this, these are the nice moments. The race tomorrow will be warm, but that won’t be too much of a problem. It could go in any way, it could rain and on used tyres the it’s a complete different running order. It will be close though, that is sure”.

A1 Team Malaysia driver Alex Yoong: “A typical qualifying for us here. Conditions changed and we did not have the right tyres on at the right time. We saved our new tyres for the end and I think that the first two sessions were quicker. But seventh is ok and this is a good track for overtaking so I think we can make up some places tomorrow. Racing in front of a home crowd is very special, hopefully they can spur us on to a good result”.

A1 Team Czech Republic driver Tomas Enge; “Last year we qualified here in the back as well and finished third in the Feature race. I am looking forward to the race, our biggest weapon is the race itself and consistency. We should have been faster, but unfortunately this was not possible today”.

Qualifying results A1GP Sepang

1 Switzerland Neel Jani 3:43.014

5 China Congfu Cheng 3:44.884

6 Netherlands Jeroen Bleekemolen 3:44.932

7 Malaysia Alex Yoong 3:45.068

14 Czech Republic Tomas Enge 3:46.407

24 November 2006 - The heat is on at Sepang

Track action for the A1GP at Sepang started today with the Rookie session and the first official free practice.

Temperatures were high at the 5.5 km F1-circuit today and the sun was out in force making for perfect conditions.

In the Rookie test this morning the Playseats sponsored teams, Malaysia, China, Czech Republic and the Netherlands were all inside the top 10 with Malaysia’s Fairuz Fauzy finishing second in the first segment, just 0.06 secs slower then Niko Hülkenberg. Confu Cheng of China took second in the second segment. Jarek Janis of the Czech Republic set an overall 7th fastest time, finishing just in front of A1 Team Netherlands rookie Renger van der Zande.

In the official free practice session a short rain shower briefly interrupted running briefly. A1 Team Germany was fastest again, with Confu Cheng having a good showing again finishing inside two tenths of Hulkenberg. Driving at his home track A1 Team Malaysia’s Alex Yoong had a good start of the session, but limited running before the rain fell prevented him from finishing higher then sixth.

 “It is a disadvantage at the moment not being in the first practice session but I hope as the weekend goes on it will prove not to be a disadvantage. Certainly for today it will be a disadvantage as for those who do not do the earlier session we do not get the best out of the tyres. In Nico’s case he had a morning session and he came out and was strong, “ Yoong credited the young German on his stunning performance. When the rain came it started on this side of the circuit so I got it in the middle of turns five and six and there was a big moment because the rain comes down here very fast, but you just have to expect it really. I think you just can’t plan for the rain as it happens so fast here and stops so quickly as well. You have just got to plan to be as flexible as you can and try to react to every change that happens.” Qualifying could be a lottery, he suggested, “I think the people may be watching the cars go round but I can assure you the team members will be watching the sky. 

A1 Team Netherlands and A1 Team Czech Republic were unfortunately unable to fight for top positions, with Jeroen Bleekemolen having to settle for 16th and Tomas Enge finishing in 11th, so both teams will have their work on finding the right set up cut out for them tonight.

Tomorrow will see the final free practice session at 11.00 hours local time, after which qualifying starts at 14.15 hours. Interesting detail…rain is usually expected at Sepang around 14.30 hours, right at the start of the second qualifying session.

Official Practice Session 1

A1 Team.	Driver	Time No	Laps
1 Germany	Nico Hülkenberg	1:54.311	6
3 Malaysia	Fairuz Fauzy	1:54.371	7
6 China	Congfu Cheng	1:55.039	6
7 Czech Republic	Jaroslav Janis	1:55.255	11
8 Netherlands	Renger van der Zande	1:56.003	12
15 Italy	Michele Rugolo	1:58.241	12
16 Lebanon	Khalil Beschir	1:59.005	12
17 Pakistan	Nur Ali	2:02.254	14

Official Practice Session 2

A1 Team.	Driver	Time No	Laps
1 Germany	Nico Hülkenberg	1:51.789	15
2 China	Congfu Cheng	1:52.986	6
6 Malaysia	Alex Yoong	1:53.884	16
11 Czech Republic	Tomas Enge	1:54.426	15
16 Netherlands	Jeroen Bleekemolen	1:55.062	20

 

 

12 November 2006
A1 Team Netherlands take pole in streets of Beijing
The Playseats sponsored A1 Team Netherlands took their first ever pole today on the especially
designed Beijing street circuit.

After problems with manhole covers on the track caused qualifying to get cancelled, article 144 of the
Sporting regulations was applied. This states that in the case of the cancellation of qualifying the
results from the free practice sessions determine the start grid for the Sprint race.

In today’s only free practice session, which got underway at 12.15 local time, A1 Team Netherlands was
quickest from the beginning. After warming up the new engine Jeroen Bleekemolen went out for his
first flying lap, immediately setting the fastest time.

It stayed like that until the end of the session, which ran for 30 minutes instead of the orginally
planned one and a half hours. A manhole cover coming loose in turn four caused this. The organisers
then decided to cancel qualifying. All manhole covers on the circuit will be bolted down tonight.

The other Playseats sponsored teams, Czech Republic with Tomas Enge, China with Cong Fu Cheng
and Malaysia with Brno double race winner Alex Yoong behind the wheel, were respectively in ninth,
fifteenth and sixteenth.

A1 Team Netherlands driver Jeroen Bleekemolen was of course really pleased with this first pole
position; “It went very well. In the beginning of the session we lost some 10 minutes because of
our new engine. In total I was not able to drive many laps. But the moment we went out we
were fastest straight away. I had to go in to have some things checked, we went out again and
were immediately fastest again. We are on the pace and the car feels really good on this track.
With a street race it is an even bigger advantage to be on pole, overtaking is very difficult.
We have a good chance of winning, also because we were fast all throughout the session. We are
really looking forward to this.

Hopefully we will have a good rolling start tomorrow, work from there and see where we end up”,
said Jeroen who is expecting that the times tomorrow will be much faster then today. “We ran on
used tyres today and tomorrow there will be more rubber on the track and less dirt, this could
easily be three seconds difference”.

Pos.	Team	Driver	Fastest lap	Gap
1	Netherlands	Jeroen Bleekemolen	1.00.093
9	Czech Republic	Tomas Enge	1.01.555	+1.462
15	China	Cong Fu Cheng	1.03.275	+3.182
16	Malaysia	Alex Yoong	1.04.246	+4.153

Before the official practice session today, 23 individual Playseats were officially presented to the
competing countries of A1GP, with all the respective national flags on each of the seats. Together with
all the A1GP drivers who will compete in tomorrow’s races the Playseats managent, A1 Team Seat
Holders and Team Managers posed for a very special group photo.


06 October 2006
Rookie Runner up of the German Formula 3 second driver of Team Ned
Another PlaySeats sponsored driver enters A1GP as 20 year old Renger van der Zande is  assigned the
second driver for A1 Team Netherlands. 

This season at the A1GP he will drive during the ‘Rookie test’, the special test session for drivers up to
25 years of age, on Friday. Renger finished ahead of Sunday´s A1GP winner Nico Hülkenberg in the just
finished season. Pleasant surpise for the PlaySeats company is that Renger was the model we used for
the A1GP PlaySeats packaging design.


04 October 2006
PlaySeats driver Jeroen Bleekemolen first driver of Team Netherlands.
Jeroen Bleekemolen is assigned as the first driver of A1 Team Ned for the 2006-2007 season.

PlaySeats is proud to be one of the personal sponsors of Jeroen and knew already that this great driver
is capable of competing at the highest level. Already in his first feature race Jeroen showed to the entire
world that Team Ned has a huge trumpcard for this season.

With spectacular overtaking The Bleek made live of the other teams miserable untill his tyres were more
or less completely gone after the Zandvoort track rapidly dried.


01 October 2006
Presents first official A1GP PlaySeat.
Last Sunday Fernando Smit, president and founder of the PlaySeats Company, presented together with
Jeroen Bleekemolen the first official A1GP PlaySeats to A1GP´s chairman mr Tony Teixeira.

PlaySeats signed a 5 year licensee contract and will produce for each participating country thier own v
ersion. Next to the countries version the fans can also order the official A1GP PlaySeats.

In front of over 1.000 VIP-guests this first official seat was presented as a one of kind model in a goldplated
frame. Mr Tony Teixeira welcomed the PlaySeats company and wished all teammembers a great season.
A1GP offers PlaySeats a fantastic platform for boosting the sales worldwide and especially in the
participating countries.