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A1 GRAND PRIX - 06.05.2008 ALL IS WELL THAT ENDS WELL.... In all modesty, we think we can say that, once again we had a very quick race car throughout the weekend. FREE PRACTICE On a circuit he clearly likes, Frankie Cheng was immediately on the pace in the free practice session on Friday afternoon. We ended the session P2. On Saturday morning we went one better, P1. Although it has to be said that on new tires Frankie didn't go any quicker than on used tires which is of course rather worrying. QUALIFYING In the first 3 segments Frankie was, rather mistyriously, off the pace. It's only in the final segment that he seemed to find his former potential back. So this resulted in a very disappointing P16 for the Sprint Race. For the Feature Race a P8 was the final verdict. Not too bad normally, only that the general feeling in the team was that this could have been quite a lot better SPRINT RACE Staring P16 in the Sprint Race leaves very little hope of a good result as these races tend to be rather straightforward. It was decided to try and go for fastes lap in the race as we were sure the car was capable of achieving this. And so Frankie diliberatly let a few cars past in order to get some free space in front in him. He managed to put in a lap time nearly 9 tenths quicker than second quickest lap in the race of the race winner, Great Britain. POINT PROVEN. FEATURE RACE Right from the start it was clear that we were again right on the pace if not setting it if we weren't being blocked by the likes of France and new champions Switzerland. Overtaking is nearly impossible on the beautiful, quick but very narrow circuit and so thanks to a couple of retirements in front of us and a good pis stop strategy Frankie finished the race P4, right under the gearbox of new champions Team Switzerlan's, driven by Neel Jani., a couple of seconds behind P1 and P2. A lot of paddock insiders did notice the performance and potential of the car and it was generally accepted that if we'd somehow had gotten past Switzerland, Frankie would have undoubtedly caught up with the 2 leaders. So, the team and Frankie showed a lot of potential throughout the series. At Team Astromega we are convinced that we have quite a strong engineering package toghether. We are sure we can achieve more often great results with Team China . But we are very keen indeed to be able to work with 2 nations and thus different drivers in order to be able to further improve the performance of Team China and it's drivers by sharing data and set-up feedback. |