19/01/2009
NEWS STORY
A1GP resumes after the Christmas and New Year break when round four of the fourth season roars into life at Taupo Motor Sport Park in New Zealand this weekend (January 23 to 25).
A1 Team South Africa will be represented by 22-year-old Adrian Zaugg and Vulindlela, the team's colourfully liveried racing car that will carry the names and logos of sponsors SABC Sport, Ericsson, Aqua SP and Aon, in addition to bearing the number 46664 to show the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport's support for the Nelson Mandela Foundation's HIV/AIDS initiatives.
Zaugg will be making his 20th appearance for his country in the series following his impressive debut at Zandvoort in the Netherlands in October 2006, where he won the opening round sprint race in season two. He repeated the feat in the opening round at the Dutch seaside resort in 2007 and went on to win the feature race in extreme wet conditions in Sydney, Australia in 2008.
South Africa is currently placed 11th of the 20 nations after the first four rounds.
"South Africans always cherish victory on Kiwi soil and with our home race next up on February 22 at Kyalami, the race this weekend in Taupo on the northern island of New Zealand is key to us" said Mike Carroll, general manager of A1 Team South Africa.
"Vulindlela almost toppled Black Beauty in qualifying there last year and I get the sense that the difficult start to this fourth season has the team more motivated than ever to deliver the kind of pace that the other teams fear Adrian Zaugg capable of. My message to the team is that each member must keep fully focussed on their role, keep believing in themselves and the rest of the team and persevere. The World Cup of Motorsport presents a tough environment, just as it should, but it makes results sweeter when persistent collective effort does deliver."
Zaugg is impatient to get back behind the wheel after the enforced eight-week break. "It was great to take some time off and visit my family in South Africa. But I'm more than ready to race again. I've been keeping fit and spent some valuable time with the Sports Science Institute in Cape Town. I really enjoyed the Taupo circuit when we made our first visit there last year. I thought I should have done better than my seventh and fifth places in the two races, so I'll be aiming to improve substantially on these results this time around."
The huge and magnificent Lake Taupo, in the North Island of the Land of the Long White Cloud, provides the backdrop for what will be one of the most spectacular races of the season. The 3,5-km circuit, which is the focus of the NZ$ 12,5 million Taupo motor sport park, runs in an anti-clockwise direction and features 13 turns and an 830-metre straight. Drivers found it hard to overtake in last year's inaugural New Zealand round at Taupo, so turn 10 has been transformed into a sharp, 90-degree left-hander, which will reduce the corner speed and hopefully create more overtaking.