This weekend sees round seven of the A1 Grand Prix series get underway at the Durban street circuit in South Africa. A1 Team Brasil will compete in the A1 Grand Prix of Nations, Durban with usual team driver Nelson Piquet Jr, who started his year on a high when his team won the Mil Milhas (1000 miles) endurance race in São Paulo, Brasil, last weekend.

Following the postponement of the Indonesian round of the A1GP series, which was due to take place in the second weekend of January, this weekend's race in South Africa sees teams take to the track for the first time in seven weeks.

The format for this weekend, as usual, will comprise two one-hour practice sessions on Friday afternoon, with the four-part qualifying session taking place on Saturday. The 30-minute Sprint race and one-hour Feature race will both take place on Sunday afternoon.

Heading into the weekend, Team France lead the standings with 106 points, followed by Team Switzerland on 75 points. Team Brazil currently lie in third place with 60 points.

Nelson Piquet Jr: "I had a great time racing last week in Brasil, and it was good to get the first win of 2006 under my belt. This weekend will be quite a different challenge as we will be racing on a street circuit and it's good that no-one really has the advantage of having raced here before. I am sure it will be interesting to visit South Africa, it's not somewhere I have been before and I enjoy visiting new countries. Let's hope we can have a good weekend."