Australia

Sprint Race

At the start of today's Sprint Race here in Sepang, A1 Team India had A1 Team USA climb over the top of the car with A1 Team Brazil unable to avoid the accident, taking three cars out of the race before lap one had been started.

With a single file formation re-start behind the safety car A1 Team Australia had it's only pit stop scheduled for lap four out of the twelve lap Sprint race. With a record breaking 8.6 second stop, 'The Pit Stop Kings' entertained the crowd giving John Martin a move up the order passing South Africa after their stop. The best previous pit stop for A1 Team Australia was 9.1 seconds in the second stop of the Feature in Chengdu two weeks ago to finish that race in 6th place.

A1 Team Switzerland enjoyed a good lead from Pole over the rest of the field to finish first ahead of A1 Team France and A1 Team New Zealand. John Martin for A1 Team Australia was catching A1 Team Italy for 7th place and in the end crossed the finish line in 8th place from his original 16th position on the grid.

With a slight change in the weather we expect some rain for the Feature in just over two hours time with a race start at 3 pm local Malaysian time.

John Martin: "That was a massive crash at the start that I managed to avoid running out to the left onto the grass. I thought I was going to get hit at one stage but didn't so that was good. There was a little bit of damage from the grass excursion but that didn't affect the car too much. My race pace was good and we have a few changes to do on the car before the Feature. Again the crew did a perfect pit stop in 8.6 seconds and we jumped South Africa. Good to score a point for the team as well"

Alan Jones A1 Team Australia Seatholder: "I am very happy; John did a good job avoiding the accident at the start between A1 team India, Brazil and the USA. The car was running well and we had good pace as the race progressed, scored a point to retain 9th in the championship at this stage"

Rob Arnott Team Chief Engineer: "I thought John did a fantastic job to avoid the accident on the start, having to do some four wheel driving on the grass and he drove a very smart and sensible race. The boys did an absolute fantastic pit stop, after re-running the footage, timed it to be 8.6 seconds. John did a textbook drive, very happy"

Feature Race

The Sepang Feature Race was action packed with great racing from the entire grid in hot humid weather with a superb fourth place for John Martin and A1 Team Australia.

The winner was A1 Team Ireland with A1 Team Portugal and A1 Team USA in second and third respectively. Marco Andretti under pressure from John Martin for the second half of the race was using all of his 'push to pass' to keep Martin behind him to the chequered flag. Unfortunately with two laps remaining the 'push to pass' on A1 Team Australia malfunctioned to what may have been a last lap dash to chase a podium finish.

Adam Gotch the Team Manager for Australia was keen to make use of the planned pitstop strategy to help move John Martin up the order after starting the race from 13th position on the grid. 'The Pitstop Kings' did it all again, setting the pace for the other teams to follow. The following pitstop times are generated from the time the car enters pit lane until it leaves pit lane and not the actual stop in the pit box. The time it takes to enter and leave pit lane excluding the actual pit stop is on average 25.66 seconds.

Once the second pit stop was completed, A1 Team Australia moved into 4th place passing A1 Team South Africa. The crew have developed such a smooth well practiced strategy that other teams have begun filming them to see what makes them so accurate and fast changing tyres.

John Martin: "I lost radio contact so I didn't know how many 'push to pass' I had left, so I pushed it on the back straight, it worked, but onto the front straight it failed. I was having to short shift most of my last laps and that cost me the chance to challenge Marco [Andretti]. I am happy for them today but that podium would have been sweet. Really happy with 4th and a big thank you to the entire team for the support all weekend, especially the pit stops, they were awesome and the crowd were loving the racing today. Full grandstands are great to race to and we had that today in Sepang. Looking forward to next year here with a win"

Alan Jones A1 Team Australia Seatholder: "John did exactly what we asked of him today. As I said to him, the more time in the car, the more laps he does on track, his confidence with the car and within himself improves, he will be faster and podiums will come on a regular basis. He is improving every race and I feel we can end up with a very good driver achieving good results. The crew were superb today, the crowd really got behind us all here in Sepang. Now we have a break before Taupo NZ and the news of the Gold Coast Race is a benchmark for future A1GP"

Brazil

A1 Team Brazil fought back valiantly to score four strong points in today's Feature race at the Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia. A frightening crash at the start of the Sprint event saw the retirement of Felipe Guimarães and meant a race against time for the team to fix the car in time for the afternoon's main event.