Third row grid slot for A1 Team Brasil in the Czech Republic
A1 Team Brasil will start from the third row of the grid for tomorrow’s feature race at Brno, in the Czech Republic, after Sergio Jimenez set the sixth fastest time in qualifying at the second round of the 2007/08 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport. In the shorter sprint race, which will take place tomorrow morning, Brasil will line up on the fourth row as Sergio set the eighth best lap of the sprint qualifying session.
In qualifying for the sprint race, A1 Team Brasil didn’t get off to the best of starts, with Sergio in provisional 15th after his first flying lap. However, the team worked hard to change the car during the five minute break before second qualifying and Sergio was able to improve his time by 1.5 seconds, moving up to eighth position, securing a fourth row grid slot for the sprint.
For the feature race qualifying session Team Brasil went out for its first lap on old tyres and set a time good enough for provisional tenth, lapping at a similar pace to last year’s championship stand-outs Germany and New Zealand. With more improvements to the car for the final segment, Sergio hit the track and was able to set an impressive lap time of 1:45.328, elevating the team to sixth position, and setting himself up on the third row for tomorrow afternoon’s main event.
The sprint race will begin at 11am local time, with the feature following at 3pm.
Sergio Jimenez: “I was really happy by Q4 compared to the start of qualifying. In Q1 we went the wrong way and the car was undriveable, it was a very difficult session for me. After that we changed the car a lot between each session. If I explained how much we changed, nobody would believe it. It feels now like I’ve started driving a racing car. Our pace on old tyres is good so I’m confident for the races. The sprint is short so realistically I think we can try to gain a position at the start and maybe one more in the race, and just go for some good points. In the feature, who knows, maybe we can get a podium. We’ve done a lot of hard work this weekend, so I’m looking forward to turning that into a strong race performance tomorrow. ”
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