Jeroen Bleekemolen: “I am very pleased and we definitely made progression compared to the last test”
During the first day of the official A1GP test at Silverstone, with the teams using the national circuit, A1 Team Netherlands set the third fastest time of the day.
In the morning session Jeroen Bleekemolen set a time of 48.373, which also proved to be his fastest time of the time of the day. With this time the team was also on top after the morning session. For a long time it looked like A1 Team Netherlands would finish the day as fastest team as well, but just before the end of the second session A1 Team India and New Zealand just managed to pass.
The two sessions, between 09.30 and 13.00 and 14.00 and 17.00 went without any problems for A1 Team Netherlands. Jeroen Bleekemolen started with an extensive shakedown of the T-car, which the team has for it’s home race at Zandvoort. After that A1 Team Netherlands Rookie Arie Luyendyk jr. got behind the wheel of the race car for his stint.
After the break it was Jeroen Bleekemolen who drove the entire afternoon session. Then the team concentrated mainly on trying out different options and did not focus on setting the fastest lap time.
In the end A1 Team Netherlands finished the second session in eighth.
Tomorrow morning there is one more test session scheduled before the cars are packed and shipped to Zandvoort, between 09.30 and 13.00 local time.
Jan Lammers; “Pleased with today’s progression. We had to give up our top position this afternoon because we wanted to complete our test program as scheduled. This morning we were faster than during the first test at the end of August and we did expect that we would be slower this afternoon. We only needed the confirmation for this. It means that we are very well prepared for Zandvoort and should be able to score a good result there”.
Jeroen Bleekemolen; “It went very well. This morning we set the fastest time. That was super. We tried some things and found some more in the car, which we can use to our advantage. This afternoon we tried something else and dropped back a bit. But we just had a very good test day, we really showed our pace with a third fastest time of the day. I am very pleased and we definitely made progression compared to the last test”.
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