Germany

A1 Team Germany achieved its third best qualifying result in the inaugural season of the A1 Grand Prix Series at Laguna Seca when Timo Scheider qualified for Willi Weber's team on ninth position for the tenth round of the series. As all the 22 teams battled cold and snowy conditions in California which even meant one practice session had to be cancelled on Saturday, A1 Team Germany found it hard to get sufficient heat into the tyres in qualifying.

Timo Scheider started into the first segment of the qualifying on a new set of tyres. His lap of 1:17.893 minutes meant he was on ninth position. In the second outing, he used the same set of tyres to improve by 0.3 seconds. His time of 1:17.581 minutes equalled an interim twelfth position. In the third segment, A1 Team Germany used a new set of tyres. Timo Scheider made best use of the fresh rubber when he improved to 1:16.000 minutes, the fourth fastest time of this segment which helped him climbing to ninth position in the addition of both fastest times. In his final outing on another new set of tyres, he drove a lap of 1:16.307 minutes, finishing the session on ninth position overall.

Timo Scheider: "The temperatures are so low at Laguna Seca that we had serious trouble to get heat into the rear tyres. Cold tyres are a big disadvantage in a single-lap qualifying format. In order to solve the problem I went for a very aggressive out-lap in my third run so as to start the flying lap on warm tyres. This strategy worked well and I achieved my personal best time in this segment. We nearly matched this time in the final outing. You had to drive exactly on the racing line as the track was still dirty after the adverse weather conditions. Ninth on the grid means we have a much better position to start from when compared to the previous two races that I tackled from 15th and 12th positions respectively. I'm fairly optimistic we will be able to fight for a lot of points on Sunday.

Canada

Patrick Carpentier qualified A1 Team Canada's entry 18th on the grid for tomorrow's A1GP Sprint race at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, California as qualifying was held this afternoon for the penultimate round of the A1 Grand Prix of Nations. The 34-year-old Québec racer, making his second appearance for the Canadian team in the first ever 'World Cup of Motorsport', was disappointed not to be further up the order having been amongst the pace-setters in this morning's practice session, eventually ending up with the seventh fastest time at the 3.6km track.

Carpentier, a two-time Champ Car winner at Laguna Seca ('03-'04), set his first qualifying run on old tires, banking a 1m21.492s utlising a modified set-up. Reverting back to his original practice set-up and a fresh set of tires, his next outing was a more competitive 1m17.201s. A 1m18.345s followed before he recorded a 1m16.440s lap in the fourth and final session. With an aggregate time of 2m33.641s Patrick lines up 18th for the Sprint race with former Champ Car rivals Bryan Herta (A1 Team USA) and Christian Fittipaldi (A1 Team Brazil) directly ahead and behind respectively.

A1 Team Mexico clinched pole position with Salvador Duran in the driving seat.

Patrick Carpentier: "I'm disappointed to be starting that far back, we ran a 1m16.440s at the end there which isn't too bad but overall the times were too inconsistent. We tried a couple of changes to the car but they didn't help us. I'm sure we'll work our way to the front when we go racing tomorrow."

New Zealand