Germany - Pole

Willi Weber's A1 Team Germany remains unbeaten in the A1 GP World Cup of Motorsport: The team starts round eight from pole position in South Africa after Nico Hülkenberg claimed the fastest time in qualifying for the third time in succession. The 19-year old "star of tomorrow" from Emmerich claimed first place on the grid at the races in New Zealand in January and Australia in February before rounding off each weekend by winning all four races.

Nico Hülkenberg immediately set himself atop the time sheets with a lap of 1m18.241s in the first of the four qualifying segments around the Durban circuit. His second run time of 1m18.430s saw him trailing the New Zealander Matt Halliday by 0.249s. However, the sum of both times left the German in front. In the third outing Nico Hülkenberg navigated the street circuit in 1m17.884s. This time was 0.153s slower than the New Zealand team which duly assumed provisional pole position with a combined advantage of 0.213s. A1 Team Germany fought back in the final segment: Nico Hülkenberg posted the fastest time of the entire weekend with his lap of 1m17.520s. As a result he claimed pole position, New Zealand lines up 0.147s behind and France 0.181s in third.

Nicolas Hülkenberg: "I'm delighted about claiming pole position for the third time in qualifying. The first run was difficult, because I had to find the limit on new tyres for the first time – but I headed the time sheet anyway. Despite not being able to select third gear once I was only two tenths slower in the second outing. My third attempt wasn't bad but most of the teams lost time because of the red flag and then everybody was on track at the same time, so it was very difficult to keep the new tyres up to temperature. In the fourth run I set fastest time again with new tyres, but it was still a nail-biting finish. There was another red flag after which France and Switzerland could have bounced back, but we had just enough of an advantage."

New Zealand - 2nd

New Zealand has qualified in second position for tonight's opening Sprint Race in Round 8 of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport in Durban.

In an action-packed qualifying filled with accidents and red flags Kiwi driver Matt Halliday drove impressively, setting his two fastest times in the 3 rd and 4th runs of the four qualifying segments around the 3.28km street circuit. It is the fifth time in eight rounds this season that Black Beauty will be on the front row of the grid. Halliday will be surrounded by European nations with championship leaders Germany qualifying on pole, subject to a protest from France*, with the French 3 rd on the grid, Switzerland 4th and the Netherlands 5th.

A1 Team.NZL's head of engineering David Sears says Halliday's effort was world-class. "Matt was very impressive and he drove incredibly well on this unforgiving circuit," Sears said. "It's dead easy to crash here, but Matt's concentrated hard and his style looks well suited to street racing."

Halliday said he was a bit apprehensive about his first qualifying attempt since Round One at Zandvoort in the Netherlands, but he is happy with the result. "It was tough to start A1GP this year having missed all the testing and just turning up at Zandvoort where I wasn't quite prepared enough," Halliday said. "Jonny (Reid) has done a good job, but I know what I can do and I didn't get the chance because he was doing a good job. I just needed to wait, but it was unfortunate as I didn't expect to wait for five months to get back into the car. I think this shows everyone I can do the job. It was frustrating to just miss the pole but we shall make sure we fight tomorrow."

The four 15-minute qualifying segments featured plenty of spills and three red flags. With just over four minutes to go in the second session, Singapore's Christian Murchison spun clipping the wall and causing a red flag. The segment was stopped while the car was retrieved causing Indonesia, France, South Africa, Italy and Portugal to miss the chance at clocking a time as the session was not re-started.

As segment three began, A1 Team China was the first to leave the pit lane but a spin at turn four put them out of contention and caused another red flag. The session re-started with just under nine minutes to go and all teams, with the exception of China who had caused the incident, were allowed to begin the segment again.

A third red flag delayed the final qualifying segment with half the field having already set their final lap time and A1 Team Germany having secured pole. As this was caused by a marshalling error the clock was stopped so the session could run its full 15 minutes to allow the rest of the field to set a time.