France Flies in Friday Practice at Eastern Creek

Event: A1GP Sydney, Australia (round 6 of 10)

Australia - A1 Team France was on incredible form today, topping the time sheets in the second of today's two free practice sessions at Sydney's Eastern Creek Raceway as round six of the 2007/08 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport season got underway in wet and overcast conditions.

The 25-year-old French driver Loic Duval, who landed in Sydney on Friday morning and arrived at the track just one hour before the afternoon session began, managed to sign-on and complete all the necessary technical briefings required to take part in this weekend's A1GP event. Duval recorded the best lap of the day on his first flying lap around the 3.93 km circuit, a blisteringly quick 1m18.675s, slashing A1 Team Germany's lap record by half a second.

Canadian rookie Robert Wickens clocked the second fastest time of the day, closely followed by Great Britain's Robbie Kerr in third and current championship leader New Zealand's Jonny Reid in fourth.

Lebanon's Chris Alajajian was on superb form today, setting the fifth quickest lap overall and the second fastest time of the hour this morning, recording the nation's best ever time during a rookie and developing nations session.

Home nation A1 Team Australia's John Martin set the pace in this morning's rookie session on a drying track, putting in a series of competitive lap times and taking the top spot. The 23-year-old, who finished the day seventh overall behind the Netherlands' Jeroen Bleekemolen, is aiming high for qualifying tomorrow in front of his home crowd:

'Obviously we won't be happy unless we're on pole tomorrow, but I think that top five would be a reasonably good result for my second meeting. The car was ok today but we made a few changes between the sessions. We had to wait for the track to clear up a bit and then the China car spun so I didn't really get the best lap on lap one, so I came straight back to the pits. Then when I went back out after that the grip was never the same so I guess seventh isn't too bad, but I would've loved to have been a bit higher up.'

France's Loic Duval, who set the fastest time of the day despite arriving at the circuit just one hour before the session started, thinks there is still room for improvement:

'It was a bit tight for me because I arrived here at 1pm on the track, 11am at the airport, but I am quite happy. My lap was not perfect but still it was enough to get the best lap time. This afternoon the car was not too bad. We still have to improve a bit though, especially on my driving we have a bit to do.'

A1 Team Australia seat holder Alan Jones was pleased with John Martin's performance today:

'We are very pleased. When we tested John at Silverstone he showed promise. Then he backed that up consistently when he did the rookie drives. Because of that he has been rewarded with the lead drive and he hasn't disappointed. At New Zealand he really didn't get a chance to get into his stride for one reason or another, but we knew that there was an underlying thing there. New Zealand was the first time John had experienced push to pass and the first time he'd done a one lap dash on new tyres, so a lot of firsts for him. We knew that with that under his belt he'd be good here and I think he proved that in the rookies this morning.'

A1 Team Switzerland, title leader when the series arrived for round five in New Zealand last month and defending champion Germany, struggled at Eastern Creek today, finishing the day 12th and 14th respectively.

Official Practice Session 1 - Rookie drivers and developing nations only 
------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                                    Lap            Lap
Pos A1 Team         Driver                Time S1    S1  Time S2    S2  Tima       Gap
                                                                                  
1   AUSTRALIA       John MARTIN           01:31.148  12  01:20.530   6  01:20.530    
2   LEBANON         Chris ALAJAJIAN       01:32.332  11  01:21.340   9  01:21.340  +0.81 
3   GREAT BRITAIN   James WINSLOW         01:35.289   8  01:21.521  12  01:21.521  +0.991 
4   MALAYSIA        Fairuz FAUZY          01:31.740  12  01:21.781  10  01:21.781  +1.251 
5   FRANCE          Jonathan COCHET       01:30.650  12  01:21.807  11  01:21.807  +1.277 
6   NEW ZEALAND     Earl BAMBER           01:39.235   5  01:21.833  13  01:21.833  +1.303 
7   MEXICO          David GARZA           01:28.482  13  01:21.872  12  01:21.872  +1.342 
8   CANADA          Robert WICKENS        01:30.811   9  01:21.955   8  01:21.955  +1.425 
9   GERMANY         Michael KLEIN         01:34.473  11  01:22.252  10  01:22.252  +1.722 
10  SOUTH AFRICA    Wesleigh ORR          01:31.087   9  01:22.579   9  01:22.579  +2.049 
11  ITALY           Edoardo PISCOPO       01:32.017  13  01:22.608   9  01:22.608  +2.078 
12  INDONESIA       Satrio HERMANTO       01:36.239  13  01:22.789  10  01:22.789  +2.259 
13  SWITZERLAND     Tom DILLMAN           01:33.280  11  01:22.816  11  01:22.816  +2.286 
14  BRAZIL          Clemente DE FARIA JR. 01:31.503  13  01:22.972  11  01:22.972  +2.442 
15  NETHERLANDS     Arie LUYENDYK         01:33.973   9  01:23.028   9  01:23.028  +2.498 
16  IRELAND         Niall QUINN           01:35.845  11  01:24.435   9  01:24.435  +3.905 
17  PORTUGAL        Federico DUARTE       01:37.354   5  01:25.359  10  01:25.359  +4.829 
18  CZECH REPUBLIC  Jarek JANIS           01:56.044   5              0  01:56.044 +35.514 




Official Practice session 2 (14.00 - 15.00)
-------------------------------------------

Pos Driver              A1 Team        Lap Time      Gap     Laps
                                                      
1   Loic DUVAL          FRANCE          2  01:18.675       -  24 
2   Robert WICKENS      CANADA          2  01:18.941  +0.266  19 
3   Robbie KERR         GREAT BRITAIN   3  01:18.996  +0.321  18 
4   Jonny REID          NEW ZEALAND     3  01:19.102  +0.427  21 
5   Chris ALAJAJIAN     LEBANON         2  01:19.337  +0.662  17 
6   Jeroen BLEEKEMOLEN  NETHERLANDS     4  01:19.669  +0.994  21 
7   John MARTIN         AUSTRALIA       4  01:19.710  +1.035  15 
8   David GARZA         MEXICO          4  01:19.854  +1.179  20 
9   Jonathan SUMMERTON  USA             4  01:19.914  +1.239  25 
10  Congfu CHENG        CHINA           6  01:19.990  +1.315  28 
11  Sergio JIMENEZ      BRAZIL         12  01:20.062  +1.387  26 
12  Neel JANI           SWITZERLAND     3  01:20.167  +1.492  25 
13  Satrio HERMANTO     INDONESIA       4  01:20.535  +1.860  28 
14  Michael AMMERMÜLLER GERMANY         7  01:20.562  +1.887  15 
15  Tomas ENGE          CZECH REPUBLIC  3  01:20.621  +1.946  28 
16  Edoardo PISCOPO     ITALY           3  01:20.840  +2.165  25 
17  Adrian ZAUGG        SOUTH AFRICA    4  01:20.891  +2.216  18 
18  Narain KARTHIKEYAN  INDIA           5  01:20.936  +2.261  29 
19  Fairuz FAUZY        MALAYSIA        7  01:21.028  +2.353  20 
20  Joao URBANO         PORTUGAL       18  01:21.484  +2.809  22 
21  Adam KHAN           PAKISTAN        5  01:21.633  +2.958  33 
22  Adam CARROLL        IRELAND         3  01:21.797  +3.122  27 

Print This Page