A1GP: Team Netherlands Again Closer To Top
May 02, 2008
On the first day of the A1GP Brands Hatch A1 Team Netherlands has shown itself amongst the front runners again. In the afternoon free practice Jeroen Bleekemolen was in the top three for a long time. In the end A1 Team Netherlands had to settle for seventh though,with the whole field being very close together.
In the Rookie session this morning Arie Luyendyk jr was less fortunate. In his final outing in the car of the season his session ended prematurely after he made a mistake at Paddock Hill bend and shot into the gravel trap. At that moment Luyendyk jr was in twelfth, with a fastest lap of 1’17.503. During the first 25 minutes Luyendyk jr. had given the newly built car a short shakedown and also bedded in a new set of brakes. After this he was able to do some timed runs on the 2.67 mile track.
Arie Luyendyk jr had enjoyed himself out on track; “Brands Hatch is an amazing circuit, the rookie session was definitely a learning experience for me. Straight away I could feel an improvement with the different chassis and began the first session working on the engine install lap and brake bedding procedures. The flow of Brands Hatch makes it such an impressive track with big elevation changes and very fast blind corners. In session 2 I really got to get a feel for the circuit and was improving every lap, learning the difficult blind turn in points and where you could really push. Unfortunately that came to a halt when on lap 7 I tried to improve on the entry to Paddock Hill bend (turn 1) and turned in too late missing the apex and went off track into the sand trap. Its a shame because I was improving and was about to come in to make a set-up change, but sometimes you have days like these. Brands Hatch is a great circuit and it would of been great to get as many laps as possible but today with limited laps we had to settle for 12th overall."”
In the free practice of the afternoon Jeroen Bleekemolen clearly showed that the problems with the car should now really be resolved. A1 Team Netherlands went quickest for a short while, was in third for a long time and finished the session in seventh. The gaps between the teams were very small though. The difference with the second fastest was just two tenths of a second. During the entire practice, which was stopped twice with a red flag, it stayed dry, although dark clouds passed the circuit very closely. Bleekemolen had no problems during this practice and set a fastest lap of 1’15.340.
Jeroen Bleekemolen was also happy with the result; “It went well. I am glad that we at least have a car again that works properly. We have tried a lot of things and done very much. We were quickest straight away, were in the top three for a long time and finished in seventh in the end, but less than three tenths from second place, so we are competitive again. Now it is important that we make the right steps with the car tonight. Then we should really be in contention for the front rows tomorrow. It is really competitive at the moment. Now we have to do our homework very well and get the absolute maximum. The gaps are really small, even smaller than usual. When you manage to make just a few small steps you are there. We are sharing data with China, that is interesting, because they were 15 hundreds quicker and are in second. That is also helping us. Let’s hope that we will be a bit stronger tomorrow.”
Jan Lammers was glad that the Netherlands seems to has got the front runners within reach again. “Now we at least have got the confirmation that we had a huge problem in Shanghai. The other thing is that now we have found the connection to the top again. We are halfway there. Often on Friday we have been there, at the start of the session it looked like that again as well. Now we are competing again, but now and then it is hard for us to hold on to that progress on Saturday. That is our main challenge now, making sure that we still have the leaders within reach. I am confident about this. Everyone in the team is working well, now we are in seventh. It is really close together, if you gain a tenth you are in third. There is not a lot that needs to happen, but I think that we should be quite competitive.”
