European nations flexed their muscles in practice for Sunday's second round of the A1 Grand Prix series in Lausitz, Germany as the New Zealand team concentrated on learning the track and finding the optimum settings for their car.

Six of the top seven places in the second practice were taken by European countries. New Zealand's Jonny Reid was 13th in both the morning and afternoon sessions.

France was the pace-setter while Ireland found an extra 1.2 seconds with a new set of tyres on late in the day to catapult into second place ahead of Germany, and the Netherlands.

A1 Team.NZL used only one set of tyres throughout the two one-hour practice sessions. Technical Director Dick Bennetts was pleased with the mid-table placings given the tyre situation and the team's lack of experience at the EuroSpeedway course.

Most nations outside of Europe have never raced at the circuit, but Bennetts has given Reid every opportunity to find his way around the track.

Gary Parfitt, who has extensive knowledge of the circuit through racing in the DTM Championship with Mercedes, drove around the track with Reid on Thursday. The team also secured information from German engineers and sourced data from Formula 3000 contacts.

The circuit is essentially a high-speed oval inside a huge stadium, with three banked corners and an infield section. Just over 4.5kms long with 14 turns, EuroSpeedway has a longest straight of 647.9m and ranges between 12 and 24 metres in width.

"It is totally different to the tighter Brand's Hatch," Reid said. "It's very technical and challenging. Because it's wider there's plenty of potential for overtaking, but it's certainly bumpier than I expected in the infield and I was slipping around a bit early on.

"But I'm a lot more confident after this afternoon's session and feel like I'm coming to grips with it. I've got some good brake markers and I'm relatively happy with where I'm at given there's still time to learn before Sunday."

Mexico spun out in today's second session and Lebanon, the car which crashed spectacularly in Round One, was black flagged. Reid believes that excitement is a forerunner of things to come and predicts Sunday's races will be explosive.

"It will pay to be up with the leaders because there could be carnage at the first corner where it narrows after the wide straight."

There is one more Official Practice session tomorrow morning before the four quick-fire Qualifying Segments on Saturday afternoon. The top two times from qualifying are added together to determine the grid for Sunday's first race.

Reid welcomed the presence of 2003 IRL Series champion Scott Dixon, who flew to Germany courtesy of Lufthansa to be a guest of the New Zealand team. Reid sounded Dixon out about strategies throughout the day.

"What a top guy," Reid said. "It was great to have him around and bounce a few thoughts off him and I'm rapt he'll be with us the whole weekend."