Brands Hatch, UK, Saturday: - A1 Team Great Britain’s Robbie Kerr will begin tomorrow’sSprint race from pole position and Feature race from second on the grid.
A1 Team Great Britain secured a front row starting slot for both of tomorrow’s 2007/08 A1GP World Cupof Motorsport season finale races as Robbie Kerr powered to pole for the Sprint race and second positionfor the Feature race in today’s qualifying session.
Following yesterday’s strong practice session, in which A1 Team GBR topped the timesheets, RobbieKerr took to the track this morning for one final hour of practice. It was another strong session for theteam, with Kerr and China’s Congfu Cheng frequently toppling each other’s times throughout the hour asthe lap times fell. At the end of the session, after Robbie had completed 26 laps with a fastest time of1:15.134, GBR was second fastest, two tenths of a second behind China.
The team scored a perfect result in qualifying for the Sprint race with Robbie Kerr taking a brilliant poleposition at the team’s home circuit after the two segments. After setting a lap of 1:14.902 in segment one,the British squad was in provisional second position behind championship leaders Switzerland, after Kerrset a time one tenth off that of Neel Jani’s time. However, in segment two, Robbie headed out once againon new rubber and improved his lap by half a second. His time of 1:14.424 put him on pole, with theUSA’s Jonathan Summerton snatching second ahead of Switzerland in third.
After first qualifying for the Feature race, GBR took provisional pole ahead of India and South Africa with Robbie setting a lap time of 1:15.092 on old tyres. Everything went down to the final segment, whichturned out to be the most competitive and closely fought session of the day. Robbie headed out towardsthe end of the session and set a lap of 1:14.909. He was only beaten by India’s Narain Karthikeyan whowas able to set a time two tenths faster than GBR, securing pole position. Robbie will therefore beginfrom the front row alongside India for the Feature race.
Robbie Kerr:
“We’ve been pushing hard all weekend and we have to be happy with the result althoughit’s a shame we’re not one place higher in the Feature race. We could have gone quicker but we didn’t geta perfect lap together and we caught out a bit with the traffic by going out so late in the session to get thebest track conditions. Tomorrow in going to be very competitive and I think the pace in the Sprint race isgoing to be very quick. The Feature race will be interesting as we have the two pitstops so we just have tocontinue the performance that we’ve been showing all weekend and go for the double win.”
Katie Clements, Team Principal:
“Everything is going to plan and the team and Robbie have performedbrilliantly so far this weekend. It’s a shame we couldn’t have taken pole for the Feature as well as theSprint, but we are on the front row for both races so we have to be happy with our day’s work. I amconfident that if we continue the performance standard we have set up to now then there is every chancefor us to score maximum points and take third place in the championship tomorrow afternoon.”
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