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A1GP Round 2 Preview - Chengdu, China

The A1GP World Cup of Motorsport gets back underway this weekend in China after an extended break. Round Two of the 10-event season will be contested on the brand new Chengdu International Circuit, with some additional teams and a few new yet familiar faces joining in the fray.

The weekend's race will also bring with it some much welcomed charity with the series taking the opportunity to help the earthquake struck region by passing along the proceeds from the event to the Sichuan Earthquake Relief Fund.

Team & Driver count rises:
Great Britain, India and Mexico, who were unable to participate in round one in Zandvoort, are kicking off their 08/09 season here in China. Due to not having tested their chassis prior to arriving in China, the latecomers were allotted extra testing time on Friday in preparation for the weekends events. Germany, Canada & Pakistan are still no shows on the season.

Making their A1GP driving debuts this weekend will be Danny Watts (Great Britain), former Champ Car driver Robert Doornbos (Netherlands) and current IndyCar driver Marco Andretti (USA).

“I’m really looking forward to making my debut for A1 Team Netherlands and representing my country for the first time,” said Doornbos. “It's a new experience for me to be representing my country in this successful A1GP series. I have never seen the circuit in Chengdu and have only tested the A1GP Powered by Ferrari car for 20-laps.”

Making their returns to A1GP competition Narain Karthikeyan for India and David Garza for Team Mexico.

The weekend's schedule is below (EST conversions in brackets)

Saturday November 8

Free practice - 11:00 – 12:00 (Friday Nov 7 10 - 11 pm EST))
Sprint Qualifying 1 - 15:45 – 15:55 (2:45 - 2:55 am EST)
Sprint Qualifying 2 - 16:00 – 16:10 (3:00 - 3:10 am EST)
Feature Qualifying 1 - 16:15 – 16:25 (3:15 - 3:25 am EST)
Feature Qualifying 2 - 16:30 – 16:40 (3:30 - 3:40 am EST)

Sunday November 9

Sprint race - 11.00 – 11.25 (Sat Nov 8 10:00 pm EST)
*Video to air just before feature race at 13:45* (Sun Nov 9 12:45 am EST )
Feature race 15.00 – 16.10 (2:00 - 3:10 am EST)

All Qualifying and Race sessions can be seen live via streaming video on the main A1GP website. www.a1gp.com

Written 11-05-2008, 02:48 pm

Updated 11-08-2008, 11:15 am

Written by M. Beer

Photography A1GP

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