Taupo, New Zealand, January 25th, 2009. Mexico A1GP team has suffered a disappointing performance in Taupo this weekend.

The return of Salvador Duran – the team’s most successful driver – brought a renewed hope for better results. Despite being new to the team and the new A1GP car Powered by Ferrari, ‘Chava’s’ performance during practices and qualifying gave good reason to believe that expectations could become a fact.

However, during the Sprint race, the team made some mistakes that sent the snake eyed car to the back of the field and Salvador’s effort was only good for 15th place.

The Feature race, for which Duran had qualified 13th, started off with another pit crew error that forced him to miss the formation lap and start the race from the pits one lap behind the entire field.

Salvador Duran made his way up the field until he found himself in the top ten, but then, during the pit stop, a problem with the wheel nuts of the rear tires caused him to lose almost 30 seconds and to be at the back of the field again.

Eventually, the team determined that the problem with the rear tires could not be fixed and after going off the track, Duran went back to the pits and retired from the race, finishing 16th.

Team’s General Manager Adrian Campos said he had mixed feelings as his GP2 team had just won in Bahrein in great form while in Taupo they made costly mistakes that caused Mexican team a promising weekend.

A1 Team Mex and Adrian Campos will take the necessary measures to make sure this kind of errors don’t happen again in order to provide the driver with the tools that will enable him to fight for the places the team deserves.

A1GP activities will resume on February 2nd, in Gauteng, South Africa, where the Mexican team will seek to earn its first points of the season.