Brazil

Sergio Jimenez will line up on the fifth and sixth rows of the grid for the sprint and feature races respectively at the Taupo circuit in New Zealand for round five of the 2007/08 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport tomorrow. Sergio qualified for the races in tenth and 11th positions after struggling with balance issues throughout the session.

Following this morning's one-hour practice session, the team was hopeful of a top six position ahead of qualifying. Sergio completed 24 laps and finished the session eighth fastest, with things looking promising as he consistently improved his times throughout the hour.

However, when it came to qualifying for the sprint race, Sergio found himself struggling with the balance of the car on the bumpy Taupo track. He went out in the first segment on new tyres with less than a minute of the session remaining. He set a lap of 1:17.516 and was in provisional seventh. Unfortunately, in the second segment, despite once again running on new tyres and improving his earlier time by more than a second with a 1:16.408, Sergio slipped down the order to tenth as lap times tumbled in the dying seconds of the session.

Although the team worked on the balance for the first segment of feature race qualifying, Sergio still struggled, setting a time of 1:16.647 on old tyres, and headed into the final segment in provisional 14th. On fresh rubber once again, and finally with a more balanced car, Sergio was able to set his best lap of qualifying with a time of 1:16.024. However, in an extremely competitive session, his time saw him settle for 11th position.

Sergio Jimenez: "Once again we started qualifying with a car that was difficult to drive. It was very nervous and these balance problems really affected our qualifying. We improved the car slightly for feature race qualifying but it was not enough. We finally found something in the last session but it was too late by then, we just didn't find the balance in time. We have a car good enough to be in the top five or six but we always struggle with balance in qualifying. I'm pretty confident for the races tomorrow though. The car is good, we can go fast and I just hope that there are no incidents and we can have a strong finish."

Emerson Fittipaldi, Team Principal: "We lost time because the windy conditions affected the set-up and we had some balance problems. Sergio was very quick on the fast corners this morning, but lost speed on those corners this afternoon. He was not happy with the car because it was very nervous on the fast corners. We lost half a second on set-up and we could have been top five."

Canada

Robert Wickens successfully carried his front-running form from Friday's practice sessions into Saturday qualifying as the 18-year-old Toronto-native posted A1 Team Canada's best qualifying slot of the 2007-08 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport season courtesy of fourth on the grid for Round 5's Feature race, hosted at Taupo Motorsports Park in New Zealand tomorrow, Sunday 20th January.

Wickens earlier captured eighth on the grid for Sunday morning's shorter Sprint race, the Canadian charger now with four top-ten starts to his credit in just six races representing his country in the winter-based, nation versus nation open-wheel racing series. With Canada currently sitting 13th in the A1GP Nations Standings, the team is seeking a strong double points score tomorrow to improve its standing amongst the 22 competing nations with this weekend's Kiwi outing the half-way stage in the title fight.

Utilizing two new sets of tires for his two Sprint qualifying runs, Robert's second effort of 1m16.201s sealed eighth on the grid with home-favorite Jonny Reid snatching pole. Wickens improved his best lap time to 1m15.922s on old rubber for his first Feature run before going faster still and capturing fourth on the Feature grid on his last tour on new tires with a 1m15.588s lap around the 3.5km track.

"Canada's goal going into every weekend is to score points and improve our overall position," Wickens remarked post-qualifying. "I think we've set ourselves up well for this weekend. I need to get a good start in the Sprint and in the Feature we need to try and make it through to the finish. The team work really hard on their pit stops and unfortunately I haven't given them the chance to do one yet in a Feature race so I'm definitely going to try my hardest and aim for the podium!"

Simon Cayzer, Canada's Team Manager reflected, "I'm very happy! The balance of the car at the start of the session was reasonable but we were struggling for grip. We made some changes and worked with Robert to advance. We're that much closer to the front now and in good company, exactly where Canada needs to be. We have a good chance to fight for solid points tomorrow!"

France

After dominating practice on Friday and Saturday on the Taupo circuit in New Zealand, A1 Team France will start from pole for the Feature race and third for the Sprint event.

A few minutes before qualifying, a strong wind blew a lot of sand onto the track, completely modifying the grip. This unforeseen situation led to four unusual sessions, as the majority of teams waited until the very last moment to go out. At the start of practice the balance of the A1 Team France car was not optimal and Loïc Duval could do no better than third. The team reacted instantaneously. A new set-up and a revised strategy enabled Loïc to get back on the pace. The result was the fastest time in the last 2 sessions that gave him pole for the Feature race.