A1GP news

Van der Zande enthousiastic about debut race

Renger van der Zande is hoping this his performance in last weekend's A1GP Shanghai, China will convince A1 Team Netherlands to give him more race drives next season.

Van der Zande completed the full race weekend for A1 Team Netherlands for the first time last weekend, having driven in most of the rookie and developing nations sessions this season. He also qualified the car and drove just the Sprint race in Mexico before handing over to regular driver Jeroen Bleekemolen. Van der Zande finished an impressive fourth in the Feature, having recorded ninth in the Sprint.

"It was a really amazing weekend," van der Zande told A1GP.com. "I was very happy that I was fit enough and I trained a lot for this race. Hopefully, I'll have put myself in their minds for next season. I got the chance - I didn't make it work in qualifying but I made it work in the race. I really like A1GP. It's a really great series. It's fun but serious too, which is the perfect combination."

He credited part of the strong result to his team's pit strategy. "I don't know how much I overtook but most of the hard work was done in the pits," he added. "The team has a massive pitstop - I think it was their fastest of the whole year. The strategy of coming in for a late stop worked for us. It was a big risk, because if the safety car had come out, the advantage would have gone."

Bleekemolen is set to drive for the team at the final round Brands Hatch, with van der Zande returning to rookie and developing nation session duties.

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