A1 Team Brasil will begin tomorrow’s Sprint and Feature races at Brands Hatch in 19th and 14th positions respectively after a disappointing day for the team at Brands Hatch in the UK. Xandi Negrão was in action for the team in the final qualifying session of the 2007/08 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport season.
Brasil took part in the final one hour practice session this morning, during which Xandi focused on further set-up work on the car. He completed 31 laps of practice, setting a fastest lap time of 1:16.192, which was 1.2s off the pace of session leaders China.
In qualifying for the sprint race Xandi struggled with grip and, after setting a time in the first segment of 1:16.189 was in provisional 16th. His problems continued in the segment and although he improved on his time with a lap of 1:16.117, he fell to 19th and will therefore begin tomorrow’s 20-minute sprint race from the tenth row of the grid.
He fared better in the feature racing qualifying session although was disappointed not to make the top ten. He was provisionally 17th after the first segment with a lap time of 1:16.556 on old tyres and then set a time almost a second quicker in the final segment with a lap of 1:15.671. This was his best lap and he moved up to 14th, but in a very competitive session where the top 14 cars were separated by less than a second, he had to settle for a seventh row starting slot.
Xandi Negrão:
“In the sprint race qualifying I didn’t warm up the tyres properly and I didn’t have any grip so I was pushing hard and we didn’t get a good lap. In qualifying for the feature race it was much better and I was able to focus on putting together a good lap and hitting the limit of the high speed corners. Unfortunately the times were so close that we are still 14th, but one tenth quicker would have put us easily in the top ten. There is not much I can do as we are starting so far back in the sprint race but I think we’re in good shape for the feature race.”
Sprint Race Qualifying
1. Great Britain 1:14.424
2. USA +0.002
3. Switzerland +0.348
19. Brasil +1.693
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