The 2009 leg of the current A1GP World Cup of Motorsport season kicks off in Taupo, New Zealand this weekend and A1 Team Indonesia has renewed vigour as it enters the New Year of racing. A1 Team Indonesia driver Satrio Hermanto will be back for his nation, whilst Zahir Ali will take up reserve driver duties, helping the team to prepare the car setup in the rookie session, for the weekend.

The 3.5km Taupo circuit will be the second visit to the New Zealand for Hermanto after making his debut at the circuit last season. It’s a tight, challenging circuit which, unusually, runs in an anticlockwise direction. There are a number of overtaking places, including improvements to one of the turns aimed at making this even more exciting. For the A1GP Taupo event, the series will break with tradition and the Sprint race will have a standing and not a rolling start. The decision was taken on safety grounds, as in the past there have been collisions due to the tight ‘s’ bend close to the start.

As part of the build up to the weekend’s racing, Hermanto and Ali will join fellow A1GP drivers as they enjoy a traditional Maori warrior welcome just outside Taupo town centre before being given a haka lesson by Te Ori Paki. The Indonesian drivers will then get to experience 20 minutes of awesome jet boating on the Waikato river. Travelling at speeds up to 80km/h, the drivers, in one of the state of the art jet boats, will power past cliffs and trees before it performs a series of 360-degree spins in the water.

After the disappointing news that they team will miss out on a home event in Indonesia, Hermanto commented, “I’m very much looking forward to getting back behind the wheel of the A1GP car at Taupo this weekend. Naturally the whole team is very disappointed that we will not have the chance to race at Lippo Village as intended, we hope we can achieve a good result in Taupo to lift everyone’s spirits.

“I do have previous experience of the Taupo Circuit after racing here last season, however we don’t have any data from the new car, so we will be working hard with the engineers to prepare ourselves ahead of qualifying.”

Bagoes Hermanto, Team Principal, adds, “This last week the team were very disheartened to hear we won’t be racing in Indonesia this season, but we have had difficult monsoon conditions in Indonesia over recent weeks, which put the circuit behind on schedule. We understand that these factors are out of our control and we can just look forward to the prospect of racing their next season. The team are very focused on the task ahead this weekend and we hope that Satrio can generate a strong result for the team.”

The A1GP Taupo, New Zealand event runs from 23 – 25 January, kicking off with the rookie driver and developing nations’ sessions on Friday from 10.45 to 11.15 and again from 11.35 to 12.05. Later the practice session for all nations takes place from 14.00 to 15.00. Final practice and qualifying for the Sprint and Feature races will take place on Saturday with the two races scheduled to run on Sunday at 11.00 and 15.00 respectively.