The 2007/08 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport got underway today at the Zandvoort circuit in the Netherlands. A1 Team Brasil hit the track with Sergio Jimenez at the wheel of the 550bhp A1GP car. After two practice sessions this morning, Sergio qualified his car on the sixth row of the grid for the sprint race, after finishing 12th fastest in the first qualifying session. He will then start from 13th in the feature race, an order which was determined by the second qualifying session.
Due to track noise restrictions, the schedule for this weekend’s opener at Zandvoort has been condensed into two days. The rookie practice session was not scheduled for this round, and will instead return to the schedule from the next race in Brno onwards. Drivers took to the track this morning for two hours and twenty minutes of practice time. There were several flag periods due to the treacherous conditions and, combined with very cold temperatures, rain fell intermittently throughout the sessions.
This afternoon’s qualifying passed without a rain shower; however the track conditions were still extremely slippery, with cars running a wet set-up. The day marked Sergio’s first wet running in the A1GP car and he continued to gather experience and worked with the team to try to improve the car.
Tomorrow’s sprint race will begin at 11am local time, which will then be followed at 3pm with the feature race.
Sergio Jimenez: “I’ve never driven the car in the wet before so it was difficult today. We also had some problems with the car and it was very difficult to drive. At the beginning we were so slow - we changed some things and improved, then in final qualifying we made one very good change which made everything better. If it rains tomorrow hopefully we can use that as a base to move up the grid. We already know we have a good dry set-up which we proved in our testing at Silverstone, so hopefully we can make some improvements tomorrow. ”
Emerson Fittipaldi: “We are mid-grid, which is a little disappointing, but we will continue to work hard. This is Sergio’s first visit to Zandvoort, the first time he has driven the car in the wet and the first time he has done A1GP qualifying. We had some difficult conditions today, there was a lot of pressure on Sergio and we didn’t know the set-up in the wet. So now we hope that the race tomorrow will be good for us. If it’s dry I am sure he will move up a lot. We will have to see how it goes. ”
Sprint Race Qualifying
1. South Africa 1:45.095
2. France +0.336
3. Mexico +1.103
12. Brasil +3.988
Feature Race Qualifying
1. South Africa 1:43.979
2. Germany +0.691
3. Great Britain +1.164
13. Brasil +3.583
Brasil - Free Practice 1
Laps: 28 Position: 16th Fastest Lap: 1:50.251 (+3.633)
Brasil - Free Practice 2
Laps: 29 Position: 13th Fastest Lap: 1:47.835 (+2.745)
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