Andretti still learning new car

Marco Andretti in the Team USA car at Kyalami. Kyalami is where his grandfather, racing great Mario Andretti, won his first F1 race in 1971 for Ferrari (below)

A1 Team USA driver Marco Andretti put his below par weekend down to still learning to find the best way to set up the A1GP Powered by Ferrari car. A1 Team USA came to Kyalami with high hopes of landing a top result, but left the circuit on Sunday evening with just an eighth place finish in the Feature race to its name.

“We’re still learning these cars," Andretti told A1GP.com. “But until we try things in terms of set-up, we don’t know whether they will work or not. I was optimistic that we were going the right way after I was second fastest in final practice, but then we committed to something before qualifying that turned out not to be right and we didn’t have time to change it back and that wrecked our weekend."

Andretti thus qualified 17th and 13th and then the team elected to use the Sprint race as a test, ending up where he started, in 17th.

“That was worth doing, though," the 21-year-old continued, “as we found something that helped us lap at a good race pace in the Feature race. Hopefully that progress can be carried forward to the next race in Portugal."