Brazil

A1 Team Brasil qualified 15th today in the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport at the Sepang circuit in Malaysia, with nominated driver Raphael Matos tackling his first ever A1 four-part qualifying session. It is a disappointing grid position for the team, who had high hopes after its double-points finish last time out in Beijing, but the crew will be working hard overnight to try to improve the team’s chances in tomorrow’s sprint and feature races.

Raphael completed 18 laps of testing for the team in the final one-hour practice session this morning before moving onto the afternoon qualifying. Ominous black clouds appeared overhead just minutes before the session began, indicating that teams could be in for a wet session but, although a little light rain fell at the start of the first segment, heavy rain never appeared and qualifying remained largely a dry affair.

Team Brasil's Raphael set his two fastest laps of 1:53.402 and 1:53.343 in the first and third segments respectively, and his lap in the third segment was quick enough for sixth fastest. However, although setting some quick sector times, he was never able to pull together a perfect lap and had to settle for 15th, therefore he will begin on the eighth row of the grid for tomorrow's sprint race, which gets underway at 11am local time.

Raphael Matos: "I liked the qualifying format, it's not to difficult. But I think that there is an advantage if you have a real confidence in your equipment and set-up. It helps if you know you have a fantastic car. Today the car was really difficult, especially in the last two segments. I think the track was cooler on the first run but I made a mistake and then on the last two runs the car was not good and I couldn't push any harder. We have a lot of work to do for tomorrow."

Emerson Fittipaldi, Team Principal: "I'm disappointed with today's result. Yesterday we were much faster and we haven't changed the car so maybe the track has changed. This is Raphael's first time doing the A1 qualifying format, and although he was doing some very good sector times on his laps, unfortunately he didn't do three good sectors on the same lap. We'll have to make a lot of changes to the car for the races tomorrow."

Canada

Sean McIntosh ensured A1 Team Canada kept its top-ten qualifying record intact Saturday as he posted the ninth fastest aggregate lap time at the Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia ahead of Round 4 of the 12-round 2006-07 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport, starting with Sunday morning's 20-minute Sprint race.

McIntosh (21), competing for A1 Team Canada for the first time this season, was keen to keep the team's streak of top-ten starts going following James Hinchcliffe's excellent qualifying performances in the Canadian car over the opening rounds in Holland, the Czech Republic and China. The 21-year-old from Vancouver failed to disappoint as he reacquainted himself with the 550bhp, V8-powered A1GP car that he drove to victory in Indonesia in the inaugural A1GP Championship last season.

Straight out on a brand new set of tires for the first of four timed runs, the fastest two being used to set the aggregate qualifying time and the grid order for Sunday's Sprint race, McIntosh lapped the 5.54km Sepang International Circuit in 1m53.142s. His next lap would be faster as he made the most of another set of new tires to post a time of 1m52.210s, the sixth fastest lap of the second session.

Sean's third run, and final outing on fresh rubber, was less fruitful as he admitted he might have pushed a little too hard for the lap, setting a 1m53.424s, ninth fastest from the 22-strong field of nations. The Canadian's last run of the session, this time on old tires, was a competitive 1m53.398s and a faster lap than his previous one. With his first two laps being the fastest of the four, and therefore forming his aggregate lap time of 3m45.352s, McIntosh ended Saturday's qualifying session ninth overall to secure a top-ten grid slot for Sunday's Sprint race. Pole went to Switzerland's Neel Jani with New Zealand's Jonny Reid lining up alongside on the front-row for the rolling start.

Encouraged to be starting 13 spots higher up the grid from last season's rain-soaked A1GP qualifying session in Malaysia, McIntosh's competitive edge meant he was still left wanting more. "The car certainly had pace today,' he commented. "I didn't get the best from my first set of tires but the second run was more promising. The track had warmed up by the third outing and I probably pushed a little too hard. I didn't come here to qualify ninth, I wanted to be higher than that on my return with the team but compared to last season's start position at Sepang it's a definite improvement!"

France

Following a trouble-free third official practice session on Saturday morning in preparation for Sunday's secondr ound in Sepang, Nicolas Lapierre qualified 10th for Sunday's sprint race.

Lapierre looked in good shape in the morning practice session as he clocked the sixth fastest time with 1.54.619.

Nicolas explained: "I was wrapping up yesterday's work and was using the old tyres. We wanted to
finalise the set up in the morning to be ready for the qualifying session. But really all weekend
we've been missing the information that we usually gather from the rookie session."