Sepang: Sean McIntosh preview

McIntosh fired up for Malaysian "Heat Wave"

Vancouver, Canada (November 15, 2005) -- Malaysia's spectacular Sepang International Circuit plays host to the fifth round of the A1 Grand Prix of Nations this weekend, 18th-20th November, the first visit to an active Formula One venue on the 12-round A1GP schedule. Team Canada's Sean McIntosh, having walked the 5.54km circuit on his arrival in Malaysia yesterday, is particularly keen to unleash his 520bhp A1 Lola-Zytek at the Herman Tilke-designed track.

"Sepang is an awesome facility," remarked the 20-year-old Canadian. "It was built for Formula One and it shows! It has a bit of everything to test both car and driver. It's a fairly wide track, which should be good for overtaking, and there's a nice blend of slow speed corners and high speed straights. I can't wait to get out there and see how the A1 car performs."

Sunday's double-header in Malaysia presents an additional challenge for Sean and the rest of the 25-strong field of A1 racers. The heat and humidity at Sepang are known to test even the fittest of athletes.

"We've been told we can expect temperatures in the range of 38C and 100% humidity," said McIntosh. "For sure that's going to make Sunday's hour-long Feature race seem even longer but I'm happy with my fitness and I'll be making sure I drink plenty of water over the course of the weekend."

Sean's previous A1 outing, at Eastern Creek in Australia ten days ago, proved to be a mixed bag with the Vancouver-native banging in a flier of a final qualifying lap to equal his best grid slot of seventh for the Sprint race. He then claimed Team Canada's fifth top-ten finish of the season before being denied another points-scoring run in the Feature race thanks to a suspension failure.

"We showed we had the pace in Australia," Sean reflected. "We were unfortunate not to come away with two top-ten finishes but it just makes me even more determined to pull out two strong qualifying laps and two strong race results here in Malaysia. The team's really coming together now and we had a great week together in Australia after the race. We need to keep our focus on qualifying to give ourselves a decent shot in Sunday's races. I'm fired up for this weekend and can't wait to race on the same turf as Formula One."

Sunday's races can be viewed live in Canada by logging on to: www.a1gp.com

-www.seanmcintosh.com