Team Italy secured its first-ever A1GP World Cup Motorsport feature race victory in an accident-packed street event in Beijing yesterday.

Team Great Britain claimed second, with Australian Karl Reindler coming in third.

Team China did not complete the race, joining a total of 11 teams that were forced to withdraw due to crashes and accidents.

Team Italy driver Enrico Toccacelo's capitalized on the other teams' woes as he moved into the lead following the Dutch and the Mexican retirements. Those two teams had started the feature race in first and second position respectively.

The Italian was delighted to have been able to hold onto the lead until the flag fell.

"This is a really good result for us and I am really happy to be back here in A1GP, in Beijing and winning the race. In the first race I was third and was really pleased because I was pretty confident, as the car was quite good.

Home driver disappointed

Team China driver Cheng Congfu said he was sorry for the mistake that led to a crash into the protection-wall.

"I am disappointed. And I also feel sorry for the home fans. I know they expected a good result from me.

"I was pushing myself too much during the race. I tried to overtake the car in front of me, but made a mistake."

Cheng added that he had also learnt a lot from taking part in such a high-level race.

"It was a great experience. I will try to forget the failure and concentrate on the next race," said the 22-year-old.

However, the organizers of the race came in for some blame for the accidents and interrupted practice sessions.

"We had some trouble on the circuit. The track is tight and has sharp turns," said Cheng.

"I have learnt a lesson from this failure. I hope the organizing committee also took away some lessons from this race. I believe the next race in Beijing will be much better."

On Friday, the first practice session was suspended after just a few laps amid concerns that emerged over turn eight as the hairpin bend proved too tight for the cars to freely negotiate.

On Saturday, the third official practice session was suspended after 25 minutes due to a manhole cover coming loose on the racing line between turns three and four.

The remainder of the practice session and four qualifying sessions scheduled for that day had to be cancelled.

(China Daily November 13, 2006)