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Shanghai: Team Pakistan Sunday notes

Difficult weekend for A1 Team Pakistan in China 13 April 2008--/ Racing action kicked off at the A1GP Shanghai, China today, with A1 Team Pakistan taking part in the penultimate round of the 2007/08 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport. Adam Khan was on ...

Difficult weekend for A1 Team Pakistan in China

13 April 2008--/ Racing action kicked off at the A1GP Shanghai, China today, with A1 Team Pakistan taking part in the penultimate round of the 2007/08 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport. Adam Khan was on track representing his nation, as teams from all over the world came together for the second Chinese event of the season. Despite some exciting overtaking manoeuvres by Khan, the team struggled for pace throughout the weekend, and finished 16th in the Sprint race and 17th in the Feature race.

Having qualified 19th, Khan lined up on the grid for the 20 minute Sprint race. As the 22 A1GP cars headed towards the start/finish line for the traditional rolling start, tension mounted. With the green lights signalling the start of the race, Khan found himself in a high speed chase with A1 Team Lebanon to the first corner. Taking the inside line, Khan made into the first corner ahead, and soon had previous race winner - A1 Team Netherlands - in his sights. Charging hard to make up positions, Khan made a brilliant move on the Dutch driver at the end of the second lap to take 16th place. With positions unchanged for the remainder of the race, Khan crossed the line in 16th place.

As the 22 nations lined up for the standing start in the afternoon's Feature race, Khan took up his 16th placed grid slot. The 22 year-old made a lightening start to beat A1 Team Brazil down to the first corner. As Khan pushed hard in 15th place, he had the Australian car in his sights as the A1GP cars completed the first lap. As the team's round him picked up the pace, Brazil retook 15th place at the end of lap two.

With the A1GP teams having to make their first mandatory pit stop between laps 8 and 16, Pakistan was one of the last teams to make a stop, and left the pits in 17th place. The order remained unchanged until the team's second pit stop on lap 28. Having completed the second pit stop, the team rejoined the race in 18th place, before making up one more final place to finish in 17th.

A disappointed Khan said after the races, "It hasn't really been a great weekend; we've struggled from the first session and haven't really been able to recover throughout the weekend. I did enjoy the racing with the Netherlands in the early stages of the Sprint race, but it was pretty uneventful after that. I made a great start in the Feature race, I thought I was going to able to get past Germany, but he didn't leave me much room and it wasn't worth risking damage to the car. It wasn't the most enjoyable race ever, for the second half I was pretty much lapping on my own. This isn't the kind of result I expect us to be getting, so we need to make some improvements and aim higher at Brands Hatch."

A1 Team Pakistan team manager John Allen commented, "The Feature race was difficult. In the first half of the race I don't really think we were on the pace, Adam was losing time and I think he was having some problems with the brakes. We didn't make the best of the pit stops today, and together with not quite being on the pace, we couldn't quite get to grips with the race. I think the entire team is a little disappointed not to have scored some points this weekend."

A1 Team Pakistan driver coach Bruce Jouanny added, "Adam made a great start, he passed Brazil and tried to make a move on Germany but I think he was pushed to the outside and couldn't make the move stick. His pace throughout the race got better and better. Hopefully we can learn something from Adam's feedback for the next round at Brands Hatch."

Khan and A1 Team Pakistan will return to racing action for the final round of this 10 round series in three weeks time, at the A1GP Brand Hatch, Great Britain.

-credit: a1teampak.com

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