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One of the outstanding drives of Gauteng last month looks to have been rewarded.

While the plaudits were mainly reserved by an impressive trio of record breakers up front – Switzerland’s Neel Jani, Brazil’s Felipe Guimaraes and Monaco’s Clivio Piccione – one of the other star performances was that of newcomer Zahir Ali for A1 Team Indonesia.

The 21-year-old secured Indonesia’s best finish for more than 36 races with ninth place in the Feature, a mature and assured drive from someone who, until that point, had extremely little mileage around at the Gauteng circuit.

And after practice and qualifying, it became clear that Ali would then have an uphill task ahead of him on raceday, having just completed 26 laps across both practice days, with a variety of technical issues blighting the teams’ preparations.

Having finished 18th in the Sprint race while suffering from a fuel pump problem, he secured a brace of points in the Feature, beating established drivers Edoardo Piscopo (Italy), Michael Ammermuller (Germany) and Narain Karthikeyan (India).

How Ali got his chance was all the more remarkable. In a surprise move prior to the event, seat holder Bagoes Hermanto elected to bench his brother, 28-strong capper Satrio Hermanto, in favour of giving the promising Ali a shot, who had impressed in rookie sessions this season. At the time it was made clear that this was only for one race, and the situation would then be reviewed after Gauteng.

Now Bagoes has revealed to A1GP.com that he was so impressed with Ali’s drive that he intends to select him again at least once more this season.

He said: “It was quite a hard weekend for us because we missed practice and also qualifying and then in the morning Sprint race we had a problem with the fuel pump, so basically we had a lot of problems.

“Then in the Feature race, the car was perfect and Zahir did a very good job. He showed natural talent for a driver, and was very patient. Our decision to put Ali in the car paid off. If you imagine that Gauteng was the first time he had completed a pit stop, he did an even better job.

“For the next two races, at the moment I think I will put Zahir for the Algarve and then we will see for Brands. Satrio had a good result there last year, scoring points starting from last place, so I think I could give each of them an opportunity, but it depends.

“I am sure he [Zahir] will go for the next one and then we will decide who will race at Brands Hatch.”

Ali was elated with his performance, mixing it with established drivers such as the USA’s Marco Andretti. He said he would love to get another chance to race, if the team wanted him too.

“Considering what happened in practice I didn’t know if I would be able to start the races,” he told A1GP.com. “I saw I had the pace so I tried to push, I followed some guys and if I could overtake, I tried. That’s racing, that’s what I was born to do.

“We have a few talents that haven’t been exposed yet in Indonesia and it’s big for Indonesia to get these points because our motorsport hopes to grow. I hope we can keep on growing to get more Indonesian drivers out in front.

“The next target for the team is to look and see where I can improve and just keep on building, to see if we can get into the top five.”

source: www.a1gp.com