Team South Africa travels to Australia in optimistic mood for round four of the inaugural A1 Grand Prix World Cup of Motorsport at Eastern Creek near Sydney in Australia this weekend.

South Africa's entry, Vulindlela (meaning 'make way'), with 21-year-old Stephen Simpson at the wheel, scored five points with a fine sixth place after starting from 24th place in the feature race at Brands Hatch in England. The team struggled with the car's set-up in Germany two weeks later, when 25-year-old Tomas Scheckter made his A1GP debut, but showed some improvement in Portugal two weeks ago when Scheckter ran in the top 10 in both the sprint race (where he finished 10th and scored a valuable championship point) and the feature race.

Unfortunately one of the other cars hit Vulindlela's left rear wheel on the first lap and Scheckter was forced to retire on the 15th lap when the wishbone broke and the suspension collapsed.

"We're obviously not happy with our results so far," said Team South Africa's CEO, Ms Dana Cooper. "But the entire team has been working very hard to improve our performance and, indeed, we have got better with each race although the results don't reflect this.

"The A1GP series is proving to be a hotly contested and close competition and although the cars are all technically equal - sharing the same chassis, 3,4-litre V8 engine, 6-speed sequential gearbox and tyres - the way each car is set up by the technical team and the performance of the driver on the track are what makes the difference between winning and losing.

"We haven't achieved optimum performance yet, but I am confident we will come close in Australia," said Ms Cooper. "With the enthusiastic support of all South Africans we will do our country proud."

Team South Africa's Vulindlela has made a big impression among the 25 nations contesting this unique Grand Prix of Nations series. It is the only car carrying its own number (Nelson Mandela's prison number 4664) and, in fact, has another two sets of numbers - 2007 to mark the year South Africa will host the soccer World Cup and 29.1.06 for the date of the Durban round of the 12-round series.

The car is striking with its national flag-inspired livery and carries the names of its sponsors - Absa, SABC TV Sport, Aon and Soviet clothing.

Eastern Creek Raceway is an anti-clockwise 3,93-km circuit featuring 12 turns and is located 20 km west of Paramatta Sydney on the east coast of Australia. It has a bit of everything, rising and falling, direction changes, different cambered corners and some good passing points. It is a safe circuit with plenty of run-off and for some years hosted the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix. Australian V8 Supercars reach a top speed of 260 km/h on the main straight and take turn one at 200 km/h.

South Africa is one of only 12 countries to be awarded a round of the A1GP series and this will take place in Durban on January 29 and will be the only street race in the series.

Vulindlela's driver will be announced in Australia at the start of the race weekend.

SABC will broadcast Saturday's qualifying live from 05:00 to 07h00 and Sunday's two races live from 04:00 to 07:30.