A1 GRAND PRIX - 01.10.2006
Race report A1GP Circuit Park Zandvoort, Zandvoort

Round 1
The Dutch event provided a truly fantastic start to the new ‘World Cup of Motorsport’. The well-known enthusiastic and chauvinistic crowd of 75.000 is seen nowhere else in the world. They had lots to cheer for as their driver, Jeroen Bleekemolen for some time looked like he was going to win the feature race. The races are still action packed and totally unpredictable.

Rookie practice + Free practice
As Frankie is a rookie driver as in fact were most drivers in the new season, both he and the team got enough time to get to grips with the circuit. On Saturday morning we went for a new set of tires in free practice, mainly as a simulation exercise for qualifying. We ended up that session P2 although we have to say that only a few teams decided to go for this strategy.

Qualifying
We decided to use the 2 new sets of tires we had left in the second and fourth segment. There are 4 segments of qualifying in which you can do 1 lap and the 2 best lap times count towards your aggregate lap time and starting position. Frankie’s lap time in the 2nd segment was the 4th quickest after the 2 segments. Unfortunately in the 4th segment Frankie lost some time behind a slower car which resulted in a somewhat disappointing P14 (out of 23) in the final classification. However it is defintely a step forward from last year and probably better than most people outside the team would have believed possible.

Race 1 Sprint race
After a clean start Frankie pulled off a great overtaking move on team Malaysia’s Alex Yoong a couple of laps into the race. Making good use of the extra 30bhp available by using the ‘boost’ button on the main straight he went for a small gap going into turn 1, Tarzan corner. We finished the race P11.

Race 2 Feature race
A new rule for this year sees the grid for the feature race determined by a combination of the finishing position of race 1 plus the quickest lap time in the sprint race. In this case we actually lost a place to Malaysia and had to start from P12. As was the case last year, there is so much going on in these A1 races it is hard to give a full release of the facts.

The obligatory pit stop after 8 laps still applies and with the prevailing variable weather coditions it was always going to be difficult to determine the best time to come into the pits. On top of this there is always the risk of the safety car having to go out.

As we seemde to have a very good turn of speed after 8 laps and were actually team Netherlands for P8 we decided not to go for the pit stop on lap 8 or 9. Some teams did and so we had moved as high up as P4 when the safety car had to come out. This was clearly a disadvantage at that stage. However, a little later it looked like it might rain and so we decided to stay out. When it rather suddenly started to rain harder Frankie dived into the pits which we were not expecting as we were going to gice him the IN board that lap. We lost a bit of time although we probably didn’t loose any positions in the final reckoning.

After a while it stopped raing and with some 15 laps it was another very difficult call to come in or not for slicks for the quickly drying circuit. We decided we were too far behind at that point to come in for another pit stop ans so Frankie had to do his best to keep going with the rain tires untill the end. We weren’t overtaken and finished up P9. A great result for Team China and a further boost to Astromega as we know we will together with Frankie Chen give Team China more great results.