November 25, 2007	Sunday	Ziqa’ad 14, 1428

SEPANG (Malaysia), Nov 24: Drivers from 22 nations are set to vie for glory of their nations when the sprint and feature races of the third event in the ongoing season of the AIGP World Cup of Motorsport takes place at the picturesque Sepang circuit on Sunday.

The participants who assembled here the other day for the weekend extravaganza, will be taking a detailed look at the track by competing in the practice race and qualifiers. Adam Khan, 22, who is spearheading A1 Team Pakistan in the current season, had to be content with the last position in practice as well as qualifiers which are spread over four segments of 15-minute each.

Trailing last but one at the end of the first two races held at Zandvoort in the Netherlands and Brno in Czech Republic, the England-born Pakistani was optimistic of improving his position despite suffering an engine problems in the practice session on Friday.

“I’m excited to be back on a track familiar to me and racing on it,” said Khan who is studying Economics at Kings College, London. He is accompanied by his Lahore-born father Kane Khan.

Located in the vicinity of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, the Sepang circuit is famous for hosting Formula 1, the premier event of motorsports in the world.

Switzerland is lying sixth with 29 points at the end of the first four races of the season and has emerged as a strong contender with its former Formula 1 driver Neel Jani making a clean sweep of qualifiers on the penultimate day.

Meanwhile, a full house is expected to turn up at the far flung venue to cheer the drivers.

The sprint race which starts at 11:00am local time will be of 20-minute durations while the Feature event that follows in the afternoon will be of one hour and 10 minutes duration.

The winner of the feature event will fetch US dollars 200,000 while the winner of the sprint race will receive US$100,000. The top 10 finishers in feature and sprint are given lucrative cash prizes.

Meanwhile, the weather in Kuala Lumpur is hot and humid and will affect the timings of the drivers. AIGP hosted an ignition party to welcome the competing drivers, team officials, and media personals at a local hotel the other day.