New Zealand plays host to the sixth round of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport this weekend and A1 Team Indonesia completed the opening day of practice at the Taupo Motorsport Park circuit today, preparing for the two races on Sunday.

Zahir Ali drove in the morning practice session, completing necessary mechanical tasks in the early part before starting to develop the car setup in the latter stages. Finishing 16th quickest overall Zahir made a valuable contribution to the team in their quest for World Cup of Motorsport points. He handed the car over to team mate Satrio Hermanto for the afternoon and the Indonesian driver took his turn behind the wheel.

Zahir said of experiencing the Taupo track for the first time, “I like the track. It’s very tight and twisty, and needs driver skill to get the best out of it. It’s quite narrow and I don’t think it’ll be easy to overtake. It’s my first time to this country and I’m really enjoying it. The country is lovely – clear blue skies, sunny, not too warm and very beautiful.”

“It’s a good track, but not easy with this powerful A1GP car. It’s a bit tricky, and quite slippery, and there were quite a lot of red flags. In the first session I tried to learn the track and in the second session I was able to start pushing a bit harder, but I made a few mistakes and didn’t have the chance to do a quick lap.”

Learning the track quickly and reacquainting himself with the car, Satrio concentrated on optimising the cars performance with different setup changes. Working closely with the team’s engineers Satrio finished 19th fastest.

Satrio said at the end of his practice time, “I enjoyed the session, but there were too many red flags, so I wasn’t really able to find a good rhythm, always having to come back to the pits. We worked through a programme of set up changes, but it wasn’t until the last lap that we made real progress. For tomorrow, I think we can improve our times, but the track is changing all the time and is very slippery, particularly the first corner and the chicane. I’m sure we can be quicker tomorrow.”

The A1GP World Cup of Motorsport, New Zealand, is expected to draw sell-out crowds for raceday and the enthusiastic support of the whole country.