Brazil

A1 Team Brasil will begin tomorrow's A1 Grand Prix of Nations, Monterrey, Mexico from the fifth row of the grid after Christian Fittipaldi qualified ninth for the team this afternoon. He looked set for a much higher grid position until an extremely competitive final qualifying segment dropped him down the order.

Following a slightly disappointing day yesterday in the two wet free practice sessions, Christian had a much better final practice this morning. Drivers got their first dry runs on the Mexican circuit today, and Christian completed 25 laps on the dry, yet very dusty and slippery track. He recorded a fastest lap of 1:24.952, which put him in fifth place on the timesheets.

When it came to qualifying, Christian continued his strong form and put in a great performance. Weather conditions remained dry, although very breezy and the track was still dusty, although it cleaned up a little throughout qualifying. Christian put in a good drive, setting consistent times and remaining towards the top of the table throughout qualifying. He ran as high as fourth after segment three, but after an extremely competitive final segment, he eventually had to settle for ninth, with his combined time of 2:47.066.

Christian will now begin from ninth on the grid for tomorrow's sprint race, which will begin at 1.30pm local time (GMT -6). The results from the sprint race will determine the grid line up for the feature race, which will begin at 3pm.

Christian Fittipaldi: "All in all I am quite happy, I can't really complain. We have made huge progress since Indonesia and I really feel I understand the car a lot better. This morning it went well, we made some good improvements from yesterday and the first half of qualifying went well. Maybe we went out a bit early in the last segment but it was okay. We are very competitive this weekend and I feel I'm really part of the game now, whereas in Indonesia I was only in the game in the race. We have the race tomorrow and I think we should do well."

Emerson Fittipaldi: "On the last qualifying run we lost two tenths, and that ended up the difference between fourth and ninth. We have a good car for the race and Christian did a good job today and he should be good tomorrow. We should be in the top three or four."

Austria

A1 Team Austria will start tomorrow's A1 Grand Prix of Nations, Monterrey, Mexico from the ninth row of the grid after Patrick Friesacher qualified 18th for the team today. It is a slightly disappointing result as Patrick had been in a strong position throughout until the final segment proved especially competitive.

The day began for the team with a third and final one-hour free practice this morning. It was Patrick's first opportunity to run in dry conditions after yesterday's running was wet throughout. Patrick completed 20 laps of practice, setting a fastest lap time of 1:26.054.

This afternoon was Patrick's first introduction to the A1GP four-part qualifying session, in which the driver's two best laps are combined to form the overall results. He began well, and set good times through all the segments. He was in 11th position at the end of the third segment, but an incredibly competitive fourth and final segment saw him slip down to 18th in the final standings.

A1 Team Austria will now start from the ninth row at the beginning of tomorrow afternoon's sprint race, the results of which will determine the grid line up for the feature race.

Patrick Friesacher: "It's a bit disappointing but it's only my first time in the car and I'm still learning a lot. It wasn't too bad in qualifying to start with but I couldn't get any grip on the front tyres and I just couldn't do any more. We have two races tomorrow though, so I will just try as hard as I can to get a good result in the first race to set us up better for the second race."

Switzerland

Neel Jani and A1 Team Siwtzerland claimed third place on the grid for tomorrow's sprint race in Monterrey with an aggregate time of 2.46.147s. Jani's best times came in his second and fourth qualifying laps but he was disappointed not to have made the front row in his last outing for the team.

"It was a very interesting qualifying session," Jani said. "Top three is always good and we have a good chance to fight for the win. My last run in qualifying was good, but all of qualifying was difficult because the weather has changed so much since yesterday. The track was slippery and sandy after the historical car race earlier in the morning. It got quicker and quicker every lap as the track improved gradually. Third is not too bad and with an excellent strategy we can fight for the win."

Max Welti, team principal, A1 Team Switzerland commented, "Neel Jani recorded a good result today. He is very familiar with the car by now and showed it. The team is well prepared well for the races tomorrow. We ran in clear conditions on the dry track but now we must focus on the race tomorrow and make the most out of our second row starting position."

Germany