Taupo: Team Pakistan Saturday notes

PAKISTAN KEEN TO MOVE FORWARD IN TAUPO RACES

The A1GP World Cup of Motorsport, Taupo, New Zealand completed the second of the three days of the event, with final practice and qualifying for the two races tomorrow. A 22nd place start for the Sprint race and 21st place for the Feature race resulted from A1 Team Pakistan's efforts in the afternoon qualifying session.

A1 Team Pakistan resumed running this morning with high winds kicking up plenty of dust and buffeting the drivers on the Taupo track. The final hour of practice gave the team the chance to finetune the setup of the A1GP car ahead of the qualifying. An early red flag for the stranded Czech car brought all the cars back to the pits after just four laps of running. The interlude was used by the team to make a few setup changes to the Pakistan car. The car was moved and Pakistan, along with the other 21 nations returned to the track and Khan continued to gain track experience through the remainder of the hour. Finishing with 21st fastest lap time, the team then set to work to prepare the car for qualifying.

In the first two segments of qualifying Pakistan completed a flying lap in each of the two. The first of his quick laps gave him a provisional 13th place, and although he improved his time for the second segment, he dropped back down the order to 22nd and the Pakistan team will take this position for the grid of the Sprint race.

Khan said after qualifying, "I'm a bit disappointed as we didn't maximise our potential in the session. We struggled with traffic, and the dusty conditions. It's not an easy track to learn or to master, and the dust blowing across the track made each corner very unpredictable. For tomorrow we need to turn consistent laps and keep out of trouble, then we can be in with a chance of improving on our grid places."

John Allen, Team Manager, A1 Team Pakistan adds, "It wasn't as good as we expected today, with the dusty, slippery conditions challenging us. For a driver who is relatively inexperienced with these conditions, added to the traffic that we had and a technically difficult circuit, it is tough. I think we'll improve our pace and make progress; Adam has already learnt a lot from Danny, our driver coach and as we work together, the results will start to come through."

The A1GP World Cup of Motorsport New Zealand race weekend concludes tomorrow with the Sprint and Feature races. The action begins in the morning with the short distance of twenty minutes racing. A colourful drivers parade and opening ceremony will entertain the fans prior to the main Feature race, in the afternoon, 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: a1teampak.com