A1 Team Indonesia was unable to take part in this afternoon’s qualifying session at the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport event in Kyalami, South Africa today. Zahir Ali has been selected to drive for his nation for the first time, however he has had little practice time.
Major technical issues for the team in the morning practice session left Zahir stranded on the track. The extensive repair work required did not give the team time to participate in this afternoon’s qualifying session.

The team was allowed additional practice time this morning after only completing 13 laps of the South African yesterday. Zahir was able to complete a further 13 laps of running in the extra session, but a wiring loom failure forced the young Indonesian to pull off the track.

The car was brought back to the pits for repairs and a replacement wiring loom, but it was disaster for the team when this loom was found to be faulty. With a replacement taking over two hours, the Indonesian crew were unable to complete the work before today’s qualifying session, leaving the team at the back of the grid for both races tomorrow.

Zahir said of his day, “I’m very disappointed that we can’t take part in qualifying, particularly as the Indonesian crew had worked so hard to replace the wiring loom after this morning’s practice. It will make it an uphill battle for me tomorrow. I haven’t had the opportunity to run on new tyres, to practice pitstops or to work on developing the car set up for the races. I will keep my spirits high and hope that we can recover from our misfortunes so far this weekend and finish the two races in good positions.”

A1 Team Indonesia Team Principal, Bagoes Hermanto, also gave his view of the team unfortunate situation, “It really is a disappointing day for us. It is a real shame considering the team’s hopes and Zahir’s preparation prior to this round. I hope this will not affect our performance during the race tomorrow. I know that this problem might give Zahir more pressure, but I know that he has the natural talent and I am very sure that he is ready for these sorts of circumstances.”

Bobby Issazahde, Team Manager, adds, “We haven’t had a good weekend so far and the problems we have had since arriving, haven’t given Zahir a chance to prepare for the races tomorrow. I think we’re giving Zahir one of the toughest challenges of his career tomorrow, with so little running, at one of the more difficult and challenging tracks of the series. When you have issues which are not the fault of the team it is very tough for everyone.

“It is rare to have wiring loom problems, and to have an issue with the replacement loom was extremely unexpected. But it was a very costly problem, as we’re now out of qualifying and have no chance at all to give Zahir the experience of A1GP qualifying or to start as high up the grid as possible. We have to take these problems in our stride, keep focused and hope that we can retrieve something from the races tomorrow.”

The A1GP World Cup of Motorsport, South Africa, concludes tomorrow with the two A1GP races – a 30 minutes sprint race and a 70 minutes feature race.