Malaysia - Pole

A1 Team Malaysia stunned its rivals with a blistering pace in qualifying to take pole position for tomorrow's A1GP World Cup of Motorsport Sprint race in Mexico City. Alex Yoong recorded his second pole of the season and fourth A1GP career pole with this outstanding effort.

In morning practice the Malaysian team were continuing with race preparations, making a number of set up changes in efforts to continue with the high performance level that the team enjoyed yesterday. The session was unfortunately curtailed for Yoong after an electrical problem left the Malaysian driver stranded on track. Without the benefit of a full hour of running the team had not been pushing for a fast time, so a 13th quickest lap was satisfactory for the session.

Yoong's first qualifying run set the target for the rest of the grid, with a stunning 1'26.490 lap time the best of the weekend so far. With new tyres, the Malaysian team car was the quickest of the field in the first segment. This excellent performance continued into the second session with Yoong comfortably ahead of his rivals to maintain his place at the head of the table. A stunning third segment saw the Malaysian team improve further, lowering the lap time still further, with a performance so strong that no other team could realistically beat his lap time and Yoong had sealed pole position with still one qualifying lap segment to complete. This early unbeatable performance allowed the team the luxury of putting race fuel mileage and old tyres on to the car to ascertain the car's handling in race conditions.

Yoong said after qualifying, "A great result today. The guys did a fantastic job on the car today. This morning we weren't on the pace, but we realised we had graining on the tyres, but we didn't panic and concentrated on qualifying, and the car was very strong. Now we just need to make sure the car is strong for tomorrow's race. We had a handling imbalance yesterday and this morning, and this grained the tyres, so we just couldn't go any faster, but we worked through this. Now, my hope is that we can win both races."

Jack Cunningham, Chief Executive, A1 Team Malaysia, added, "I'd like to congratulate everyone in the team for this excellent result today. Arriving here and being on the pace immediately was the start we needed, and to follow it up with such a commanding performance in qualifying is an excellent continuation of these efforts.

Of course, there are no Championship points for pole position, so our aim is to stay on this pace and to turn this into the podium-winning finishes we're looking for. We are looking to deliver our sponsors and supporters a good result tomorrow."

Germany - 2nd

A1 Team Germany, managed by Willi Weber, achieved a surprisingly good start position for the ninth round of the eleven-race A1 GP World Cup of Motorsport in Mexico City: Christian Vietoris, contesting an entire race weekend for the team for the first time, claimed second position on the grid in his debut qualifying session. As a result, the 17-year old young talent from Gönnersdorf in the Eifel region of Germany continued the exceptional series started by previous cockpit occupant Nico Hülkenberg, who started four times from the front row in the previous eight rounds – the last three occasions from pole position.

At the "Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez", Christian Vietoris recorded the third fastest lap time of 1m27.221s in his first qualifying run behind Malaysia and Great Britain. He set a lap of 1m27.382s in his second outing giving him the second best time behind Malaysia and also second overall in the provisional rankings. In the third section, initially interrupted by a red flag, A1 Team Germany once again set second fastest lap with a time of 1m27.155s. However, Briton Oliver Jarvis squeezed Christian Vietoris down to third place in the overall standings. In the final qualifying segment the German newcomer struck back: with a lap of 1m26.828s he not only recorded his personal best qualifying time but also the fastest overall time in the fourth segment. As a result he claimed second position on the grid alongside the former Formula 1 driver Alex Yoong.

Christian Vietoris: "After languishing down in eleventh place in free practice this morning, we set-up the car again like it had been on Friday. In the first qualifying run on new tyres I immediately posted third fastest time, and second in the second run on the same tyres. I made a small mistake on new tyres during the following attempt. In the final segment I pushed to the absolute limit on new tyres and snatched second place. It goes without saying that it is a fantastic result in my first qualifying run in an A1 GP race car. Furthermore, New Zealand who is our closest rival in the championship only qualified 14th."