Asian Motor Sports

A1 Team Monaco racer Clivio Piccione believes that A1GP Chengdu, China showed that the team can fight with the very best in A1GP, and this is inspiring the team as it looks ahead to the third round at Sepang on 23 November.

Piccione started the Feature race seventh and went on to finish in the same position, but it was the way that he passed the cars of Malaysia and South Africa on the run down to the first corner that will have excited Clivio and his fellow seat holder Hubertus Bahlsen.

Better still, Clivio then kept his white and red car alongside reigning champion Switzerland’s car all the way down to and through Turn 2 before completing the move at Turn 3, demoting Neel Jani.

“It was an awesome start,” Clivio told A1GP.com. “I was comfortable in fourth too, but then out came the safety car. Unfortunately I lost two places at my first pit stop and another at the second stop, but I was faster than those ahead and able to attack. Unfortunately, John Martin defended very well for Australia in the final laps, but I’m really encouraged as I look ahead to the next round in Sepang.

“Sepang has everything that I like: high-speed corners, lots of grip and it’s wide enough to offer lots of places to overtake, so the racing will be fantastic. Also, I’ve spent time on A1GP’s simulator in Bologna, driving its Sepang programme, which will certainly help.”

It’s not just the Sepang circuit that is attractive to Clivio but the fact that it will offer further opportunity for this new team to gel.

“We haven’t been together very long,” explained Clivio, “and we’re all on a learning curve together, but we feel really encouraged by the way that we’ve managed to get on the pace so fast. The circuit at Chengdu was too bumpy and dusty to help us learn much about the car, but we still learned a lot about working as a team and have to be aiming for our first podium.”

To acclimatise, Clivio headed straight for Malaysia from China and will arrive at Sepang after a week of ‘preparation’ on a resort island