Organisers promise to rectify system glitch

THE hitch to the communications systems that robbed A1 Team Malaysia of a possible podium finish in Round Three at the Sepang Circuit on Sunday will be rectified.

This assurance, according to A1 Team Malaysia commercial director Owen Leed, was given by the organisers upon discoveries made in post-race studies on Sunday.

"A1GP is studying the communications tapes and are 99 per cent sure that the signal that Fairuz (Fauzy) received was from Team Britain and not ours," said Leed.

A passionate home crowd were left dumbfounded over the bizarre incident when Fairuz, who was chasing down Portugal's Filipe Albuquerque for second spot, suddenly pitted to an unprepared crew with 17 laps remaining.

Fairuz said after the race that he had received orders over the team radio for him to pit, but none of his engineers or team boss Jack Cunningham had ordered him to do so.

It was later discovered that the orders were likely from A1 Team Britain for their driver Danny Watts to pit, as he had been involved in a collision which had damaged his car just moments before the communication was made.

"This is not a driver or a team error. This is probably a technical peculiarity at Sepang for reasons so far unknown, but A1 are taking this very, very seriously," said Leed.

All race radio communication systems used by the 20 teams in the series are supplied by the organisers, confirmed A1GP chief executive officer Pete da Silva on Sunday, but information on the hitch as to how it happened, was still not conclusive as of yesterday.

Fairuz himself was disappointed, but hoped the error would be rectified.

"I had sensed something was wrong much earlier, especially when there were many cars close by. On the starting grid, I was hearing many instructions crossing over into my earphones," said Fairuz after the race.

"But I thought it was just because all the cars were close by.

"When the race started and there was some distance between cars, it seemed okay, until I went into the pits and found that the team had not called me in."

Fairuz returned to the race in 14th place and did well to salvage 10th spot and a vital championship point after driving like a man possessed.

A1GP will be issuing clarification of the matter once conclusive studies are made.

In the meantime, A1 Team Malaysia are left to rue what might have been, having dropped from the lead to fifth in the championship.