On Monday, A1 Team Italy has flown from Millan Malpensa to Johannesbourg. By arriving in South Africa Massimo Del Prete, chief engineer of A1Team Italy, has been stopped by the frontier police because of a problem encountered with the visa and has remained 24hours in the area reserved for the “clandestine”: the Italian technician has flown back to Italy yesterday morning in order to obtain a new passport so as to return to South Africa for the race.

“We are perplexed for what happened – comments Piercarlo Ghinzani, A1Team Italy seat holder –

The South African law requests that in the foreign passports there are 3 blank pages for the visa and Massimo had only 2. We have learned what happened only a few hours later, because Massimo has been isolated without computer or mobile phone: clandestine can make a phone call every 3 hours. Hopefully the prefect of Milan, Francesco Colucci has helped him to make a new passport in a record time”.

Massimo Del Prete has obtained the new passport and has flown again from Milan to South Africa where he will arrive tonight.

“What has happened to our engineer – follows Ghinzani – has been grave from a humen point of view and has delayed the set-up work on the car, that we usually do 2-3 days before the circuit access”.

This weekend for the first time will be used the new pressurised fuel collector studied and developed from A1GP technologies together with Ferrari in order to work at high ambient external temperatures, that has been tested in Taupo (New Zealand) from the A1Team Ireland and New Zealand rookies, in the week following the race.

Edoardo Piscopo first driver of the Italian team, again at the wheel of the “Powered by Ferrari” car is at the top of his athletic shape: ” Not even a month has gone since the Taupo race. We had little time to prepare the race, but we have tried to maximise the time. I have worked hard with my coach in order to improve the muscular resistance and reduce the recovery time. I have also worked out up in the mountains, by doing cross-country skiing. The Gauteng round is very challenging for the physique: the lateral “g” in the turns put the neck muscles to the test and the trapezius and the heath lengthens the time of physical recovery”.

In the meanwhile, the series’ calendar has had a change. The A1GP Mexico, already postponed from March 15th to 22nd, because of the presence of the “Radiohead” concert, has been postponed again with the new date to be announced because the circuit hasn’t received the FIA license. When the Federal Authority will release the license to the Mexican circuit, A1GP World Cup of Motorsport will be able to announce a new race date.

Rai Sport Più will broadcast the Sprint and the feature race at 4.00 pm on Rai Sport Più (Digital Channel and Sky Channel 227)