Qualifying, Round 8 – A1 Grand Prix of Nations, Sentul, Indonesia

Courtesy Stuart Morrison Public Relations

11th February 2006 – Sean McIntosh continued to maintain A1 Team Canada’s top-ten form ahead of tomorrow’s eighth round of the A1 Grand Prix of Nations at the Sentul International Circuit in Indonesia.

The 20-year- old from Vancouver captured eighth on the grid for Sunday’s Sprint race with an aggregate lap time of 2m35.685s in today’s qualifying sessions at the 3.96km permanent road course. With the luxury of a completely dry track for three out of the four timed-runs, McIntosh went straight out on new tires having run in the dry in Indonesia for the first time in this morning’s practice session, where he was ninth fastest.

A lap of 1m17.978s on his second qualifying run was then bettered with a fresh set of rubber for his third outing where he posted a 1m17.707s. Ultimately those two runs would set A1 Team Canada’s qualifying position as rain showers early in the fourth and final session hampered McIntosh’s efforts as he was one of the first drivers out on track. A1 Team Canada starts tomorrow’s opening Sprint race in eighth, the team’s ninth top-ten start of the season, while A1 Team Great Britain’s Robbie Kerr captured pole position ahead of A1 Team France.

Sean McIntosh: “Eighth place isn’t a bad grid slot but I’m a little frustrated as it’s not quite where we hoped to be. I was hoping we’d go quicker in the fourth session as the car was handling well and our third run was competitive but the rain denied us. We’ll see what improvements we can make before tomorrow’s Sprint and Feature races, we know we have a decent wet set-up and we’re comfortably in the top-ten in the dry. The weather could be the deciding factor but we’ll be going for it regardless!”

Qualifying – Aggregate times for two fastest sessions
1. Great Britain, Robbie Kerr, 2:34.257; 2. France, Nicolas Lapierre, 2:34.477; 3. Mexico, Salvador Duran, 2:34.544; 4. Switzerland, Neel Jani, 2:35.065 5; Japan, Hayanari Shimoda, 2:35.190; 6. Malaysia, Alex Yoong, 2:35.447; 7. Ireland, Ralph Firman, 2:35.670; 8. CANADA, SEAN MCINTOSH, 2:35.685; 9. South Africa, Stephen Simpson, 2:35.750; 10. New Zealand, Matt Haliday, 2:35.797.

Sunday’s races can be viewed live or on demand in Canada via www.a1gp.com while Team Canada’s Official A1 site can be viewed at www.a1teamcan.com.