Brazil

A1 Team Brasil endured a difficult qualifying session today for round four of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport when Sergio Jimenez suffered from brake problems throughout. In an incredibly competitive session at the Zhuhai International Circuit in China, the issues affected Sergio in terms of performance and, as a result, the team will begin tomorrow's sprint and feature races from 12th and 14th places
respectively.

Following this morning's final one-hour practice session, A1 Team Brasil embarked on the afternoon's qualifying. Sergio set his fastest lap in the first segment for the sprint race, clocking a time of 1:24.141, good enough for a provisional sixth place. However, as the track cleaned up and lap times became more competitive, Sergio saw his position drop to twelfth in the final standings.

For the feature race qualifying, Sergio recorded his fastest time in the fourth segment with a lap of 1:24.328. In a session in which the top eighteen drivers were separated by less than a second, Sergio placed fourteenth at the chequered flag.

During the whole of qualifying the team struggled with the brake pads on a circuit which has proved to be very hard on brakes. Work overnight will focus on solving these problems in preparation for tomorrow's races. The sprint race will get underway at 11am, with the
feature race beginning at 3pm.

Sergio Jimenez: 'I'm really disappointed with the positions because it's not where we should be. We have had a lot of problems with the pads today in practice and then in qualifying and it has really affected us. The only thing to do now is work on the problems for tomorrow and hope we can gain some positions in the races.'

Fernando Paiva, Team Principal: 'This series is becoming more and more competitive and if you have a small issue these days, especially in
qualifying, it can really hurt you. Zhuhai is a difficult circuit on brakes and we tried to prevent that problem from affecting us and we didn't manage it. We are going to get it right tomorrow, but unfortunately we will be starting from positions which do not reflect our practice performance.'

Canada

A1 Team Canada secured 10th and 11th place starting slots for Sunday's Sprint and Feature races respectively as Round 4 of the 2007-08 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport season gets set to play out tomorrow at China's Zhuhai International Circuit.

Fielding Toronto's Robert Wickens for the second-straight event, and following a highly competitive showing in yesterday's free practice with the teenage standout second quickest from the 22 competing nations, the Canadian team was upbeat heading into Saturday's qualifying sessions but frustrations would follow. Down a set of tires compared to its rivals having had to use an extra set the day before, Canada faced the four-run qualifying format armed with just two new sets to attack the 4.30km track.

Straight out on new tires for the first of his two Sprint qualifying laps, Wickens was easily amongst the front-runners with a 1m24.029s lap but out on old tires on the next he had to settle for 10th fastest for the session. Feature qualifying was a similar tale. A fresh set of tires for his second and final lap produced a 1m24.149s run but the Canadian was just edged outside the top-ten placing 11th overall.

"We knew qualifying would be tough," Wickens commented. "Everybody else had three new sets to our two. We went well on our first set with P4 but everyone else slapped on another set for the next run and we couldn't match their pace on old rubber. We did a good job considering but we still have some work ahead of us. The balance of the car is fine, we just have a lack of grip. For sure we can move forward tomorrow, it's just a matter of how far can we go!"

"It's fairly close in the mid-pack, we just struggled for grip and we're not as quick as we were yesterday," stated Team Manager Simon Cayzer. "We have to dig deep to put together a good race car for tomorrow. We don't have any major problems but we need a few tweaks. It would have helped to have the extra set of tires today in qualifying but I'm not going to focus blame on that."

France

A1 Team France will start from seventh and fourth positions in tomorrow's Sprint and Feature races in the fourth round of the 2007-08 A1GP Championship on the Zuhai circuit in China. The team did not do a lot of running yesterday and took advantage of this morning's free practice to make up some of the time lost and fine-tune its settings. It accomplished its mission perfectly as Loïc Duval set the quickest time in the morning session.

Unfortunately, the Frenchman did not have the level of grip he was hoping for in the first part of this afternoon's qualifying when he was on new tyres. He could do no better than seventh despite pushing as hard as he could. A1 Team France reacted by modifying the car's set-up slightly between the sessions. It was the right decision, and Loïc was on the pace straightaway setting the fourth-quickest time in the second part of qualifying.