The first points race of the AFR Championship came back to Shanghai International Circuit （ SIC ） this weekend. The young Israel driver Alon Day of team March 3 (M3) grabbed pole position just as everyone expected. French driver Benjamin Rouget and Indonesian driver Rio Haryanto of Asia Racing Team (ART) qualified 2 nd and 3 rd respectively.

The fierce competition started even before the qualifying. During the official practice in the morning three drivers set laptimes at 1:38+. The top 6 drivers were almost equally fast with the time difference of less than a second. The top 6 drivers were Luis Jorge (ART), Alon Day & Zhiqiang Zhang (M3), Benjamin & Rio from team ART and Jim Kato of Champ Motorsport. In qualifying session, Alon Day (M3) grabbed pole position and set his best lap 1:47.773 in lap 7, which is almost 1 second faster than official practice. Benjamin (1:48.317) and Rio (1:48.571), two drivers from ART, both set their best lap in lap 8. Chinese driver Zhiqiang Zhang qualified 4 th and Luis, who was the 1 st in official practice captured 5 th . Jim Kato, the champion of 2008, qualified 6 th .

Pole sitter Alon Day said he was aiming for the top spot of the podium. He indicated after the qualifying that except for Luis' car stopped on the track after lap 7 and affected Alon's performance, the rest of the qualifying went very well. “The car is in its best form and I enjoyed driving it.” Alon also indicated that he will finish the whole season in hopes of winning the AFR championship.

The following are the AFR Championship starting grid: