Brazil

A1 Team Brasil will line up for tomorrow's Sprint and Feature races in Mexico City in eighth and 18th positions respectively after this afternoon's qualifying. Bruno Junqueira, who was in action for the Brazilian squad, had his feature race qualifying ruined when Team Mexico crashed ahead of him, causing him to back off on his hot lap.

The day kicked off with a final hour of free practice, and Bruno took to the track in what turned out to be a very close session, with the top 18 teams separated by just a second at the end. Bruno completed 26 laps of practice on the challenging Mexican circuit, setting a fastest time of 1:22.162, 0.477s behind Italy's Edoardo Piscopo, who topped this morning's session.

In qualifying for the sprint race, Bruno headed out with five minutes of the first session remaining and set a lap time of 1:21.457, putting him in provisional 11th position. He waited until later in the second segment, heading out with just two minutes to go, and improved his lap by six tenths of a second with a time of 1:20.842. His time moved him up to eighth position, securing him a fourth row grid slot for tomorrow's sprint event.

In feature race qualifying, Brasil used old tyres for the first segment. Bruno set a lap time of 1:21.675, which put the team in provisional 14th position. Using the final set of new tyres in the second segment, Bruno headed out late into the session with the majority of the field. He was on the final sector of his hot lap when the home entry of Team Mexico crashed into the wall ahead. Bruno backed off due to the accident and therefore did not set a competitive time. His grid position was then determined from his first lap, set on old tyres, and Brasil will begin on the ninth row of the grid in 18th position.

Bruno Junqueira: "Qualifying for the sprint was okay, I was four tenths from pole and the car was getting better. For the feature race it was really bad. I was on a very good lap, and the yellow flag came out. I thought we needed to slow down like the rest of the weekend so I did, but now they are saying you don't have to slow down in qualifying. So I'm very disappointed but we will try our hardest tomorrow to see what is possible."

Emerson Fittipaldi, Team Principal: "Bruno did well in the sprint race qualifying but for the feature race he had a yellow flag at the last corner. He thought the rules were the same for qualifying as the rest of the weekend so he backed off and we didn't get a good lap in. He should be around P7 or P8 so it's disappointing. But it's a long race tomorrow so we'll see how it goes."

Canada

Robert Wickens captured A1 Team Canada's second pole position of the 2007-08 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport season today as the Toronto-born racer topped the timesheets in Feature qualifying at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriquez in Mexico City, home to Sunday's eighth round of the nation versus nation championship.

Wickens, who became the youngest ever A1GP pole winner at the previous round in South Africa, collected his third front-row start in four races courtesy of a flying lap of 1m20.278s in this afternoon's Feature race qualifying session. The 19-year-old, whose pole came with the top twelve nations separated by less than a second, hopes to convert P1 into victory tomorrow as he did in Durban last month in the Sprint race – Canada then climbing to eighth overall in the A1GP Nations Standings.

The earlier Sprint qualifying session proved to be an even tighter affair at the 4.42km track with the top fifteen entries split by less than a second – Wickens powering Canada to a third row grid slot with the sixth fastest time, a 1m20.621s. South Africa's Adrian Zaugg claimed the Sprint pole ahead of fellow A1GP race winner, New Zealand's Jonny Reid.

Robert fired himself into immediate pole contention with his first tour in Feature qualifying, a 1m20.812s, second fastest for the session. Going quicker still on his final run, Robert set the fastest third sector time on his way to a 1m20.278s lap. Wickens duly trumped the field to claim both his and A1 Team Canada's second-ever A1GP pole position.

"Getting my first Feature pole is definitely a great accomplishment," said Wickens. "Everyone wants to win the Feature race as it's longer with pit stops and more variables. The team did a great job; the car was phenomenal in qualifying. We struggled a bit in practice but overcame those difficulties in time for a competitive qualifying showing!"

"Another great performance from the team and particularly Robert," reflected Mark Gallagher whose Status Grand Prix operation runs A1 Team Canada. "After the win in South Africa, another pole here, this time in the Feature, is very satisfying and a further indication of the team's strength in depth. Daniel Morad played his part this weekend by performing well in the rookie session yesterday so all in all it's a very satisfying team effort."

Czech Republic

Filip Salaquarda qualified the Czech car to 22nd position for the Sprint and 21st for the Feature race in Mexico.The Czech team had a lot of things to do in the Saturday's practice after they lost basically the whole session on Friday afternoon. The team tried to tune the car for both qualifying and race.

They had to use also a new set of tyres because one tyre was damaged in the yesterday's accident. Salaquarda did 17 laps with best time 1:23.611 and finished 21st.