A1 experience helps Yoong regain appetite for motor racing

Alex Yoong is enjoying his motor racing again. He became famous in 2001 as the first Asian to race in modern-day Formula One, but two years with the perennially under-funded Minardi team eroded the Malaysian's reputation.

After dropping out of F1 he raced in the United States and then Australia before grabbing the opportunity to create, and then drive for, the Malaysian A1 GP team. A front-runner in A1's inaugural season, Yoong won the penultimate round in Shanghai in March and shortly afterwards announced he would be racing in the Le Mans 24-hours next month.

'The success in A1 has restored my credibility,' says Yoong, 29, at the first round of the Le Mans Series in Istanbul.

'The whole time I was at Minardi I had just four or five days testing. Basically the only time I sat in the car was at race weekends,' said Yoong, who didn't have a road car so the only time he drove at all was at the grands prix.'

It's easy to forget that Yoong's teammates at Minardi were Mark Webber (in 2002), who went on to Jaguar Racing and is now with Williams, and, for those first races in 2001, Fernando Alonso. 'He was pure talent,' remembers Yoong of last year's champion.

'I'm not sure he understood then how he does it, not like he does now, but he had talent in bundles. Very few people knew the full picture - that actually I was doing a good job. There were some races in which I drove badly but I was really happy with the last third of 2002,' says Yoong calmly. 'Mark would still out-qualify me but I think I was racing stronger than him.