A1GP

Brno: Team Malaysia Saturday notes

KEEPING PAIN IN CZECH AT BRNO A1 Team Malaysia continued their preparations for tomorrow's Brno round of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport in the Czech Republic today. The team is having a tough weekend of mechanical and setup issues which is ...

Published: Oct 14, 2007, 4:04 PM

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KEEPING PAIN IN CZECH AT BRNO

A1 Team Malaysia continued their preparations for tomorrow's Brno round of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport in the Czech Republic today. The team is having a tough weekend of mechanical and setup issues which is compromising their performance with an uncharacteristic 18th place start for the Sprint race and 22nd position for the Feature resulting from today's qualifying session.

Following yesterday's practice sessions in which the team struggled to find their form, the team worked long and hard to resolve the issue. A thorough check of the team's car revealed a damper failure which had had a major affect on their performance.

In morning practice the team were able to put behind them the challenges of yesterday's practice and make substantial progress. This set back the team's efforts to maximise practice time, but they were undaunted and worked furiously to make amends. A top ten lap time, despite a puncture which limited the team's running, was a welcome reward for the commitment and dedication of the Malaysian team.

The turn in fortunes was sadly short-lived. Set up changes made after the practice session were hoped to result in further improvements, but Yoong found himself with a return of his handling problems from yesterday. He battled on to secure 18th place on the grid, but it was apparent that the car had further problems.

With the team struggling for their usual high performance level, a differential problem was identified. It was decided to sit out the third segment using the time to make changes and target a better start for the Feature race. Although the Malaysian crew quickly made the changes during the third segment of qualifying the car had further issues leaving Yoong at the back of the grid for the Feature race.

Yoong said, "We've just had all sorts of issues since we arrived here, and we haven't been able to resolve them today, although the crew worked really hard to try and sort the car during the session."

Jack Cunningham, Chief Executive of A1 Team Malaysia, says "We are suddenly having a run of technical issues that we haven't had in the previous two seasons. We had some kind of problem at Zandvoort that we couldn't get to the bottom of. In Brno we had a rear damper failure yesterday which we were unable to diagnose till this morning by looking at the data; we had a puncture which cost us 20 minutes today and then we changed the differential in qualifying.

"The limited track time of the three-day event in A1 is such that, if you lose time setting the car up, it's very difficult to recover. Changing the differential in qualifying, in itself a minor miracle performed by the technical crew, was our attempt to find that miracle. Sadly it hasn't worked for us. We need to try to get to the bottom of these technical problems, but that's a huge challenge now. We will try and recover as much as we can tomorrow but we can't be that hopeful starting both races from so far back, which is unusually far back for us."

The A1GP World Cup of Motorsport Czech Republic race weekend concludes tomorrow with the finale of the weekend, the Sprint and Feature races. The action begins in the morning with the lights to flag dash of twenty minutes racing. A colourful driver parade and opening ceremony will entertain the fans prior to the main Feature race, which features two mandatory tyre change pitstops. The 22 nations will line up at 11am for the Sprint race and 3pm for the Feature race.

-credit: a1teammalaysia.com.my

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