Netherlands Tops Durban Friday Practice

Event: A1GP Durban, South Africa (round 7 of 10)

South Africa - A1 Team Netherlands set the pace in the second of today's two free practice sessions in South Africa as round seven of the 2007/08 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport season got underway around the streets of Durban in hot and humid weather conditions.

Jeroen Bleekemolen recorded the best lap time of the day, a 1m18.738s, around the 3.28 km circuit, just over half a second off Brazil's lap record. Germany's Michael Ammermüller, who was an impressive 1.3 seconds quicker than the rest of the field at the end of the rookie practice session this morning, clocked the second fastest time of the day.

Great Britain's Oliver Jarvis, who hasn't driven an A1GP car since December 2007, and USA's Jonathan Summerton were on good form this afternoon, setting the third and fifth fastest lap times respectively. This was particularly impressive as both nations did not have the benefit of this morning's rookie session. Switzerland's Neel Jani was sandwiched between GBR and USA in fourth.

Home nation South Africa's Adrian Zaugg pleased his local fans by setting the sixth fastest time of the day despite limited track time, closely followed by Australia's John Martin in seventh. Title leaders A1 Team New Zealand and France had a tough time around the streets of Durban, finishing the session 11th and 15th respectively.

Canada's Robert Wickens only managed 10 minutes of track time and completed four laps in this afternoon's session, as the team had to repair damage sustained to the car during this morning's rookie session, when new boy Daniel Morad, the youngest driver to sign-on this season, was behind the wheel.

With concrete walls surrounding the perimeter of the tight and twisty street circuit, some of the teams and drivers ran into trouble with session-stopping incidents. A1 Team Mexico's David Garza had a big accident this morning, hitting the wall as he exited turn six. Garza was unhurt but the car was so badly damaged that the Mexican team had to sit out the second session and spend the afternoon setting up one of A1GP's spare cars for qualifying tomorrow.

The Netherlands' Jeroen Bleekemolen set the fastest time overall today and is feeling happier with the set up of the Dutch car:

'It was a lot of fun to drive. I love street circuits so it's been going really well. I won last year in Monaco with the Porsche Supercup and I won with A1GP in Beijing so I just like racing on these tracks. We have been struggling a lot with the car the last few races and it's going much better on street circuits, as it did in the past with Jos Verstaapen, so I think we have a much better set up for that and it looks like we have a good chance for this weekend. We just need to work on the normal circuit set up.'

South Africa's Adrian Zaugg, who set the sixth fastest lap this afternoon, is feeling quietly confident ahead of his home event in Durban this weekend:

'We had problems with rebalancing the tyres today so we just tried to do one lap at the end which wasn't too bad under the circumstances, so we're looking alright. It's very competitive and A1GP is getting more and more competitive with each season and I think the times will stay pretty close all weekend. I'm pretty confident - we'll see after qualifying on Saturday afternoon but I think we should be in good shape.'

Official Practice Session 1 - Rookie drivers and developing nations only 
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                                                    Lap            Lap
Pos A1 Team         Driver                Time S1    S1  Time S2    S2  Tima       Gap

1   GERMANY         Michael AMMERMÜLLER   01:21.162  12  01:19.390  16  01:19.390   
2   SWITZERLAND     Marcel FASSLER        01:21.006  12  01:20.705  17  01:20.705  1.315 
3   AUSTRALIA       John MARTIN           01:21.870  17  01:20.885  13  01:20.885  1.495 
4   MALAYSIA        Fairuz FAUZY          01:21.502  15  01:21.144  12  01:21.144  1.754 
5   SOUTH AFRICA    Wesleigh ORR          01:22.456  14  01:21.254  13  01:21.254  1.864 
6   BRAZIL          Xandi NEGRAO          01:22.026  13  01:21.255  14  01:21.255  1.865 
7   PAKISTAN        Adam KHAN             01:22.980  10  01:21.442   5  01:21.442  2.052 
8   ITALY           Edoardo PISCOPO       01:22.548  15  01:21.642  15  01:21.642  2.252 
9   FRANCE          Nicolas PROST         01:23.047  13  01:21.707  14  01:21.707  2.317 
10  LEBANON         Khalil BESCHIR        01:24.009  10  01:21.863   8  01:21.863  2.473 
11  NETHERLANDS     Arie LUYENDYK         01:23.376  12  01:22.347  12  01:22.347  2.957 
12  MEXICO          David GARZA           01:22.384  13  01:23.239   4  01:22.384  2.994 
13  PORTUGAL        Filipe ALBUQUERQUE    01:22.859   6  01:22.550   8  01:22.550  3.16 
14  INDONESIA       Satrio HERMANTO       01:23.994  15  01:23.115  15  01:23.115  3.725 
15  IRELAND         Niall QUINN           01:23.484  11  01:23.401   8  01:23.401  4.011 
16  INDIA           Parthiva SURESHWAREN  01:24.334   6  01:24.101  12  01:24.101  4.711 
17  CANADA          Daniel MORAD          01:24.226   5  01:25.039   5  01:24.226  4.836 
18  CZECH REPUBLIC  Josef KRAL            01:26.088   9              0  01:26.088  6.698
                                                                    

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

Pos Driver              A1 Team        Lap Time      Gap     Laps
 
1   Jeroen BLEEKEMOLEN  NETHERLANDS     19  01:18.738      -  23 
2   Michael AMMERMÜLLER GERMANY         11  01:19.051  0.313  17 
3   Oliver JARVIS       GREAT BRITAIN   20  01:19.207  0.469  22 
4   Neel JANI           SWITZERLAND     20  01:19.303  0.565  23 
5   Jonathan SUMMERTON  USA             20  01:19.525  0.787  21 
6   Adrian ZAUGG        SOUTH AFRICA    17  01:19.567  0.829  17 
7   John MARTIN         AUSTRALIA        5  01:19.579  0.841  16 
8   Narain KARTHIKEYAN  INDIA           21  01:19.580  0.842  26 
9   Filipe ALBUQUERQUE  PORTUGAL        20  01:19.626  0.888  23 
10  Fairuz FAUZY        MALAYSIA        21  01:19.658  0.92   23 
11  Jonny REID          NEW ZEALAND     23  01:19.765  1.027  28 
12  Bruno JUNQUEIRA     BRAZIL           5  01:20.023  1.285   6 
13  Adam KHAN           PAKISTAN        11  01:20.058  1.32   22 
14  Congfu CHENG        CHINA           21  01:20.058  1.32   26 
15  Jonathan COCHET     FRANCE          21  01:20.271  1.533  23 
16  Adam CARROLL        IRELAND         18  01:20.354  1.616  19 
17  Robert WICKENS      CANADA           3  01:20.990  2.252   4 
18  Edoardo PISCOPO     ITALY            8  01:21.430  2.692  27 
19  Satrio HERMANTO     INDONESIA       13  01:22.230  3.492  22 
20  Khalil BESCHIR      LEBANON          3  01:22.469  3.731  10 
21  Josef KRAL          CZECH REPUBLIC  21  01:22.727  3.989  28 
22  David GARZA         MEXICO           0             0 

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