A1GP: From Daytona to Sydney - 30.01.2008

Tomas Enge is going to finish his three weeks long travelling adventure this weekend. He fought in the A1GP on the New Zealand fortnight ago, lined up in the famous Daytona 24 hours last week and then flew directly from Florida to Australia to continue the fight in the A1GP – World Cup of Motorsport. His plane took of on Sunday evening of local Daytona time and arrived on Tuesday morning in Sydney.

Tomas had been looking to the States after the disappointment at Taupo and his crew belonged to the favourites of the opening race of the Grand Am series. However, the machinery was against and international quartet had to retire after an engine failure. The Czech driver hopes that he will find some luck at Australian’s Eastern Creek track.

He has raced there twice and already during the debut in the A1GP season 2005/2006 liked the venue. He hopes that he will at least score the same results like last year when he finished both races in the top 10, better was the feature race with fifth. Like at Taupo, Enge is going to be joined by Jarek Janis who will drive in the rookie sessions.

Eastern Creek track
The A1GP is the biggest international championship that visits the track. Eastern Creek is located just 40 minutes of drive from the Sydney downtown and is a familiar venue of the very popular V8 Supercars series. It also hosted MotoGP championship in 1991-1996. The track is 3930 metres long. Eighty percent of the track can be viewed from the main grandstand.
Internet: www.eastern-creek-raceway.com

Tomas Enge: “I have raced twice at Eastern Creek and I like the track from the very first moment. One of its uniqueness is very fast first corner. I am looking forward to get there and hope for a positive reversal of our form but it is difficult to say if and how we will do it. Setting up the A1GP car is so strange that we can be hardly one hundred percent sure of the route which we have taken. It is not only about us. Just look at Malaysia or Canada at Brno. They used their setups from the year before when they were quick but last October were helpless regarding the setup... It is really quite strange, so we just have to hope that we will hit the sweet spot of the setup much closer than last time at New Zealand’s Taupo.”

Antonin Charouz, seat holder: “I believe that we will do better than at Taupo but I agree with Tom regarding his opinion about strangeness of the championship. There are odd things that have been happening in the championship. However, we are not giving up.”

Standings
1. New Zealand 82
2. Switzerland 80
3. France 80
4. Germany 65
5. South Africa 59
6. Ireland 50
7. Netherlands 49
8. Great Britain 48
9. India 28
10. China 28
11. Brazil 27
12. Canada 22
13. Mexico 18
14. Czech Republic 10
15. USA 9
16. Portugal 5
17. Italy 4
18. Australia 4
19. Malaysia 2
20. Pakistan 0
21. Lebanon 0
22. Indonesia 0
Internet: www.a1gp.com

Book - A1GP World Cup of Motorsport Season 2006/07
Nearly 160 pages of high quality art paper bring hundreds colour pictures from the last season of the A1 Grand Prix. The publication presents the World Cup of Motorsport in its typical form – like a colourful and exciting world of top class racing. Successful Czech photographer Adolf Zika (www.zika.cz) took the pictures. However, there are not only pictures but also a lot of articles – about races, drivers, teams and background of the growing championship. Full results are a must.
The author and his team that participated on the book found one interesting bit during their work. Adolf Zika was the only member of the Czech team who was at all races! The group of engineers and mechanics varied and the same apply to the drivers. However, the photographer himself had to be everywhere because he needed documents from the whole season.
Sale of the book: www.bpa.cz

A1GP 2007/2008
30 September A1GP Zandvoort, The Netherlands
14 October A1GP Brno, Czech Republic
25 November A1GP Sepang, Malaysia
16 December A1GP Zhuhai, China
20 January A1GP Taupo, New Zealand
3 February A1GP Sydney, Australia
24 February A1GP Durban, South Africa
16 March A1GP Mexico City, Mexico
13 April A1GP Shanghai, China
4 May A1GP Brands Hatch, Great Britain
Internet: www.a1gp.com