Team China is brimming with confidence as the A1 Grand Prix of Nations heads to Beijing next month for the first of the two Chinese GPs on the calendar of the World Cup of Motorsport.

Cheng Congfu powered home fourth in Sunday's short-distance sprint race at the Czech Grand Prix in Brno, the best result for Team China, and followed it up with an eighth-place finish in the feature race later in the day. Malaysia's Alex Yoong won both races for a historic double.

Cheng's results taken in tandem with the ninth-place feature race finish in the season opener two weeks ago in the Netherlands mean China has eight championship points. The country is now 11th among the 27 competing nations. Last season, China finished the annual series in 22nd spot.

The blistering run provided Cheng and his colleague with a perfect lead-up to the A1 Beijing GP, set for November 10-12.

"We are now very close to meeting our goal of a podium finish," said team director Guan Yunke, who was quick to point out that Cheng was just 1.5 seconds behind France's Nicolas Lapierre in the sprint.

"Just can't think of a better scenario to attain than that in Beijing."

Yoong completed 38 laps of the 5.41-kilometer Brno circuit in the feature race in 1 hour, 10 minutes, 47.815 seconds.

Tomas Enge of the Czech Republic finished second in 1:10:55.151 and Mexico's Salvador Duran was third in 1:10:56.780.

Phillip Giebler of the United States, who finished 17th in the race, had the fastest lap of 1:74.820.

Yoong won the sprint race in 18:02.946.

Canadian James Hinchcliffe was second in 18:04.580, ahead of Lapierre (18:05.677).

Germany leads the overall standings with 20 points after two events of the A1 season.?

(Shanghai Daily October 10, 2006)