proxima cita:
Sydney,Australia 02/04 Feb, 2007
Practice: Friday, 02 Feb, 2007
Qualifying: Saturday, 03 Feb, 2007
Race: Sunday, 04 Feb, 2007
Sprint race: 11:00 AM (local time)
Feature race: 3:00 PM (local time)
Location: 20km west of Paramatta Sydney on M4 Motorway
Track length: 3.93km
No. turns: 12
Direction: Anti clockwise
Lap record: 1.19.751 recorded by Nicolas Lapierre, A1 Team France in 2005.
Address:
Horsley Road,
Eastern Creek,
Sydney,
Australia
A1GP will return to Eastern Creek for its second A1GP event February 2007, after it hosted one of the first season’s most popular events.
The Sydney Opera House dominates one of the most beautiful harbours in the world, along with the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which some of the A1GP drivers climbed in 2005. Decades of immigration also mean that Sydney has a great variety of food on offer. From Greek to Lebanese, Japanese to Indian and a fusion of Eastern and Western styles mark out Australia’s food among the best in the world and reflect the international nature of A1GP.
Time zone: GMT + 10
Airport: Sydney International Airport
Currency: Australian Dollar (AUD)
Average January temperature: 80.2 °F
Average January rainfall: 6.0 inches
Built and owned by the New South Wales Government to host the 1991 Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix, Eastern Creek International Raceway is the only international race circuit in Sydney. It is currently operated by the Australian Racing Drivers Club (ARDC).
Located just 40 minutes from the centre of Sydney, Eastern Creek is the hub of motorsport in New South Wales, also combining the world's largest karting facility and Australia's leading drag complex. Eastern Creek International Raceway annually plays host to a number of Australian motorsport's biggest events, including annual rounds of the Australian V8 Supercar Championship and motorcycle racing.
The facility offers motorsport fans and competitors a year-round world standard motor racing facility. This includes a 4,000 seat covered grandstand over looking the start finish line providing a view of 80% of the circuit. The pit facilities provide 52 roll-in / roll-out garages, all with power and immediate access to the support paddock area. The air-conditioned suites have closed circuit TV, computerised lap scoring screens and their balconies overlook the start/finish line, main straight and pit lane. The roof of the pit building is capable of hosting a further 1,500 corporate guests in marquee style suites.
Australia’s 7,686,850 km2 landmass is situated on the Indo-Australian Plate. The capital, Canberra, is located in the Australian Capital Territory, although Sydney is the largest city, with four million people, or 20 per cent of the population. The majority of the population are located in and around the cities of Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.
Australia largely consists of desert and semi arid land, making it the driest inhabited continent. The northern part of the country is something of a contrast, with its tropical climate, it is made up of rainforest, woodland and grassland. A result of this varied climate and long-term geographical isolation means that much of Australia’s vegetation and wildlife is diverse and unique to Australia. About 85 per cent of flowering plants, 84 per cent of mammals, 45 per cent of birds and 89 per cent of in-shore fish are native to the country. One of the celebrated national phenomenon’s The Great Barrier Reef, is the world’s largest coral reef and lies off the north coast of Australia and extends for over 2,000km, or 1,250 miles.
Australia has been inhabited for over 40,000 years by Indigenous Australians. After traders and explorers discovered more of the country through the seventeenth century, the eastern half of the continent was claimed by the British in 1770 and became the penal colony of New South Wales in 1788.
As more and more regions were explored and populated, five more Crown Colonies were established through the nineteenth century. The UK formally claimed the western part of Australia in 1829, while in 1863, the Northern Territory was founded as a free province, not a colony and became a province of South Australia. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the individual colonies set up their own governments, while remaining part of the British Empire. This process continued until the six colonies were federated and the Commonwealth of Australia was formed, as a Dominion of the British Empire in 1901. During this time the indigenous population of Australia began to diminish.
Australia’s independence from Great Britain increased further with the Statute of Westminster which ended most of the constitutional links between the two countries and was adopted by Australia in 1942.
The final constitutional ties between Australia and Great Britain ended in 1986 with the passing of the Australia Act 1986, which brought to an end any British role in the Australian states. However, Australians rejected a move to become a republic in 1999, when 55 per cent of voters opted to keep Queen Elizabeth II as Queen of Australia. Under the constitutional monarchy with its parliamentary system of government, the Queen, under the Constitution of Australia, delegates all her powers to the Governor General.
The demographic of Australia began to change after the Second World War as the government actively encouraged immigration from Europe and lifted restrictions on immigration from other countries. Most of the 20.4 million Australian are descended from nineteenth and twentieth century immigrants, the majority from Great Britain and Ireland. The population quadrupled in the post war period as a result of this ambitious immigration programme. This had quite a significant impact on the culture of Australia. Up until the mid twentieth century, the culture was Anglo-Celtic, while in recent years, the environment and indigenous culture have had a large impact.
In terms of the economy, Australia has a well developed, western style mixed economy that is heavily reliant on the service sector, including tourism, which makes up 69 per cent of the GDP. The economy is relatively stable and at the beginning of 2006, unemployment stood at 5.3 per cent.
Sport is a very important part of culture in Australia, with over 23 per cent of all adults over the age of 15 taking part in organised sporting activities. At an international level, Australia performs well in cricket, hockey, rugby league, rugby union and swimming – and of course – motorsport.