TBK-Light.com

A1GP will be making its first visit to Gauteng, having raced three times around the streets of Durban on the Indian Ocean coast.

As a permanent racing facility, Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit is approaching its 50th anniversary. Since its opening in 1961 the circuit played host to numerous Grand Prix, Moto GP and World Superbike endurance events.

The current 4.26-km layout of the track was built in 1991, with only one minor addition since, the building of a chicane at the penultimate corner.

In a recent international survey Kyalami was voted one of the top ten 'names' associated with South Africa.

After three seasons around the streets of Durban, the South African stop of the A1GP calendar switches to its most famous racing circuit, Kyalami.

The six former races in Durban have resulted in lively events, including the maiden win for A1 Team Netherlands in 2006. Germany won twice there in 2007 on the way to championship glory, and Switzerland and Canada shared the honours in 2008.

Morad tops timesheets after first free practice
20 February 2009

A1 Team Lebanon's Daniel Morad topped the timesheets at the end of the first day of practice for the Go-GP.org A1GP Gauteng, South Africa. Morad put the best lap in right at the end of the late afternoon session in the hot Kyalami sunshine recording a blistering lap of 1m 30.816 seconds.

The lap smashed the 10-year-old lap record at the circuit, with a time more than four seconds quicker than the previous best, set in 1998 in a Ferrari 333 SP driven by Mauro Baldi. "The circuit is getting quicker and quicker as more laps are done and the tyres are getting much more grip," Morad said in the post session press conference.

"I only really got to drive half of the session, but I made up for lost time. In the end I put in a very good lap. I knew this circuit will be challenging because of the elevation change and I really love it. It's one of the best A1GP circuits."

It was doubly impressive, because it was more than half-a-second quicker than the next best lap of the day, set by championship returnee, Germany's Michael Ammermuller. The 2006/07 champion team is making its season debut in this weekend's event, and despite his time away, Ammermuller showed the same pace that allowed him to be capped 14 times last season.

Championship leader Ireland was classified third fastest, with Adam Carroll less than two tenths of a second behind Ammermuller in second. Jeroen Bleekemolen was fourth quickest on his return to the A1 Team Netherlands car. The Dutchman is the only driver in this weekend's field to have previously raced at the circuit, having taken part in a sportscar race while A1 Team Netherlands was racing Chengdu, with teammate Robert Doornbos behind the wheel.

Filipe Albuquerque was fifth quickest for Portugal ahead of the home favorite Adrian Zaugg for A1 Team South Africa. Neel Jani was seventh for Switzerland, ahead of Australia's John Martin, Monaco's Clivio Piccione and New Zealand's Earl Bamber rounding out the top ten.

Extra A1GP sessions scheduled in South Africa
20 February 2009

Gauteng, South Africa will now have additional track time following delays that affected a number of teams on Friday.

Five cars did not make it onto the Kyalami track for these two sessions due to a technical issue beyond the teams' control. With Kyalami sitting 2000-feet above sea level, A1GP has had to introduce new parts to the cars' fuel systems to combat the high altitude. Unfortunately, the additional parts were not available to be fitted in time to five cars. It also delayed some of the other cars which did get out.

The cars will now be allowed out for an additional rookie session from 07.40 to 08.25 and an additional practice session from 09.15 to 10.05.

Because teams were affected in different ways some will run for the whole of each session, some will run for just 25 minutes of each session and some will not run at all. In the both sessions teams may only use the originally nominated driver.

The teams who can take part are as follows:

Rookie Session: 07.40 - 08.25
45 mins - Great Britain, Iindonesia, India, Lebanon, Mexico, USA
25 mins (starting at 08.00) - Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, Switzerland

Practice Session: 09.15 - 10.05
50 mins - Brazil, China, Great Britain, Mexico, USA
25 mins (starting at 09.40) - Indonesia, Italy, Lebanon

Teams that will not run at all are France, Germany, Ireland, Monaco, Netherlands.

Apparently Team China's Ho-Pin Tung had a heavy crash during saturday's FP.

I was just checking Premiere's schedule for today (sunday :P). I couldn't find A1GP though... They used to show it, didn't they?