01/05/2008
NEWS STORY
The final round of the third and best season of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport takes place at the famous Brands Hatch circuit in Great Britain this weekend and Team South Africa is confident of a strong final performance.
After nine rounds in eight countries, including South Africa, it all comes down to two races on Sunday. Switzerland leads by a comfortable 29 points from New Zealand and should join France (season one) and Germany (season two) as overall winners of this unique international motor racing series that pits nation against nation in identical cars.
South Africa, with 21-year-old Adrian Zaugg at the wheel of Vulindlela throughout, has had its best season to date and looks like achieving its goal of finishing in the top five among the 22 participating nations. After 18 races (each round consists of a 20-minute Sprint on Sunday morning and a 70-minute Feature on Sunday afternoon), South Africa is just seven points behind fourth-placed Great Britain and nine points ahead of Germany and Ireland. All are race winners (there have been 10 drivers on the top step of the podium), so none of the teams will be taking anything for granted.
"We are satisfied with our overall performance so far," said Mike Carroll, general manager of Team South Africa. "With better luck, particularly in Mexico (where a punctured tyre robbed us of a win in the Sprint), we might have been contesting third place overall. As it is, we have our work cut out to hold off the two very strong teams of Germany and Ireland, let alone challenge Great Britain for fourth on their home circuit.
"As a team we have shown marked improvement over the past three seasons and this year has been our most successful by far. We have benefited from our technical collaboration with Team France and Adrian's three race wins and four pole positions have established him as one of the top drivers. It has been a very competitive and closely contested season and we have done well to reach the final race weekend in fifth place overall. We'll obviously be trying hard to improve on this and, as always, aiming to add to our race win tally," said Carroll.