Driving for the Meritus Qi team Tasmin from the 1st practice session ( only practice) on friday showed she was going to be a forse to be reconned with by posting the 5th quickest time only 0.4sec off the quickest time posted. She had a major understeer problem which the data showed she was loosing about 0.8sec a lap, this making her pace look even better .

Qualifying on sat morning was held on a damp & drying track. She was a bit too carefull & only qualified 9th after being 5th until the last lap. Race 1 was held in pouring rain on sat afternoon after the F1 qualifying. She got a good start off the line making up 3 places only to miss a gear & exit turn 1 in 13th place. In her true gritty & determined manner, she set about chasing down the front pack. With some amazing skill & overtaking she eventualy finnished 4th only 4sec behind 3rd place.

Race 2 on sun morning was held on a dry track & after the warm up lap she said her car was perfect & she was going for a podium finnish. She started in 7th place , but a dragging clutch saw her get another bad start dropping back to 10th by turn 1. By lap 2 she was in 6th place challenging for 5th. Halfway through lap 3 she made a pass for 5th only to be sqeezed onto the inside curb into turn 11 ( same turn Massa spun his car ) causing her to spin to the infield getting stuck on the wet grass & premature end to the race. Even with all this she was very up beat with her performance over the weekend & lies tied for 6th in the championship which is being led by her fellow South African & team mate Simon Moss.

She has never had so much media attention in her life as she had this last weekend with TV & print media interviews & photographs. She was on front page of Malaysias main sat morning newspaper The Star. This was a first for any driver in F/BMW.

We hope to use this to her advantage while still trying to find her a sponsor.

Regards
Iain