A1 Team Great showed it was still on form following its Mexico Feature race win by topping the timing sheets in today’s practice session for the A1GP Shanghai, China this weekend. With regular driver, Robbie Kerr back behind the wheel, A1 Team Great Britain clocked a time of 1.35.573, just three hundredths of a second faster than second placed New Zealand. On only his second A1GP race weekend, France’s Jean Karl Vernay set the third fastest time completing the circuit in 1.35.680.

Commenting on his performance, Robbie Kerr said: ‘Things look good. Oliver (Turvey) did an excellent job in the car and came back with some really useful data and some knowledge of the circuit for me so I could I could learn from that and go out there and perform well. When we first went out, the car was immediately competitive and we were second quickest straight away but we just needed to make a few more improvements throughout the session and change a couple of things and ended up at the end of the day going quickest.’

Talking about the new chicane that joins turns four and eight on the shortened circuit, Kerr continued: ‘The kerbs do seem to be quite low but they bounce the car around a lot and you need to keep it stable through there to enable you to get on the power. It’s definitely a challenging part of the circuit to optimise the attack but obviously you’ve got to be in control at the same time and keep it really well balanced.’

A1 Team Germany who could potentially win the championship this weekend finished the second practice session in sixth place however rookie driver, Christian Vietoris, who raced for the team last time out in Mexico, topped the table in this morning’s session for rookie drivers and developing nations. Vietoris said: ‘The car was really good as we started the session and we were able to improve it through the session. It was good to finish on P1 and now I want to drive the race. The first two laps there was a lot of oversteer and understeer and the track was very nice. I learnt it a little bit on the PlayStation so I knew the track and was able to push.’

Bia Figueiredo became the third female to drive an A1GP car when she completed this morning’s first official practice session for A1 Team Brazil. The 22 year-old Brazilian who follows former outings by Katherine Legge and Jenifer Murray for A1 Teams Great Britain and South Africa respectively said:
‘It was fantastic and the speed was very impressive. It was a big difference from the car I’m used to in South American Formula Three. I was very confident and towards the end of the session my speed was ok. It was about getting confidence and the next opportunity I get I’ll know the car and will be able to push more. I’d love to do more A1GP. It would be great. I would be available for Brands Hatch if they asked me, but lets see.’

There is still work to be done by home team China who clocked the seventeenth and fifteenth times over the two sessions. Commenting on the day, driver Congfu Cheng said: ‘At the beginning of the day in the rookie session we had a problem with one of our tyres and we didn’t have a back up tyre which is why the results were not very satisfying. We changed the tyre and when you do that you have to adjust to the new tyre, but things will get more and more improved. I hope we will do better tomorrow. Today hasn’t been ideal for us but we achieved a stable performance in the last ten minutes, so hopefully we can do a lot better tomorrow. We can do better tomorrow so we aim high for at least a top six position.’

 
Official Practice Session 1 – Rookie drivers and developing nations only (11.15 – 11.45)

	A1 Team	Driver	Time	No. Laps
1	Germany	Christian Vietoris	1.36.236	19
2	France	Jean Karl Vernay	1.36.695	18
3	Great Britain	Oliver Turvey	1.37.102	20
4	India	Narain Karthikeyan	1.37.263	21
5	Netherlands	Renger van der Zande	1.37.436	20
6	USA	Jonathan Summerton	1.37.537	16
7	Switzerland	Marcel Fassler	1.37.581	22
8	South Africa	Alan van der Merwe	1.37.776	8
9	Canada	Kevin Lacroix	1.37.976	20
10	Australia	Ian Dyk	1.38.189	21
11	Malaysia	Aaron Lim	1.38.236	16
12	Italy	Michele Rugolo	1.38.308	17
13	Portugal	Joao Urbano	1.38.512	21
14	Lebanon	Allam Khodair	1.38.550	15
15	Indonesia	Moreno Soeprapto	1.38.666	19
16	New Zealand	Daniel Gaunt	1.38.691	21
17	China	Congfu Cheng	1.39.472	15
18	Ireland	John O’Hara	1.39.489	15
19	Czech Republic	Filip Salaquarda	1.39.554	18
20	Brazil	Bia Figueiredo	1.39.985	12
21	Mexico	Sergio Perez	1.40.126	5
22	Pakistan	Nur Ali	1.40.791	16

 
Official Practice session 2 (14.00 – 15.00)

	A1 Team	Driver	Time	No. Laps
1	Great Britain	Robbie Kerr	1.35.573	17
2	New Zealand	Jonny Reid	1.35.603	17
3	France	Jean Karl Vernay	1.35.680	4
4	India	Narain Karthikeyan	1.35.931	19
5	USA	Jonathan Summerton	1.35.976	14
6	Germany	Nico Hülkenberg	1.36.001	13
7	Switzerland	Sebastien Buemi	1.36.110	25
8	Netherlands	Renger van der Zande	1.36.232	3
9	Malaysia	Alex Yoong	1.36.339	21
10	Portugal	Joao Urbano	1.36.522	26
11	South Africa	Alan van der Merwe	1.36.537	12
12	Indonesia	Ananda Mikola	1.36.631	20
13	Italy	Enrico Toccacelo	1.36.657	24
14	Canada	Sean McIntosh	1.36.675	24
15	China	Congfu Cheng	1.36.834	17
16	Czech Republic	Filip Salaquadra	1.37.275	19
17	Mexico	Sergio Perez	1.37.279	12
18	Ireland	Richard Lyons	1.37.370	24
19	Brazil	Vitor Meira	1.37.378	8
20	Australia	Ian Dyk	1.38.079	10
21	Pakistan	Nur Ali	1.39.926	17
22	Lebanon	Allam Khodair	-	-