Brazil

Xandi Negrao took to the Brands Hatch circuit in Kent, United Kingdom, for A1 Team Brasil today as free practice got underway for the final round of the 2007/08 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport.

As Xandi is still classed as a rookie, A1 Team Brasil was able to run the 22-year-old in both the rookie practice and main practice sessions today. He completed 14 laps in the first 25-minute rookie segment, setting a fastest lap of 1:17.325, which was eighth fastest. He was seventh in the second segment after completing 12 laps, with a fastest time of 1:16.604, just five tenths off the quickest lap recorded by New Zealand.

In this afternoon's one-hour practice session the team continued to work on developing the car throughout the hour and focused on Xandi getting as much track time as possible. He completed a further 24 laps, setting a fastest time of 1:15.917. However, in an extremely competitive session in which the top 15 cars were separated by just one second, Xandi was 15th fastest overall.

A1 Team Brasil will have one further hour of practice tomorrow morning before the afternoon's qualifying session.

Xandi Negrao: "Today was all about getting as much time in the car as possible so I've just been working with the team to learn the circuit and feel good with the car. The times were very close this afternoon so our position didn't really reflect where I think we are. Tomorrow morning we'll just do more development work and aim to be in good shape for qualifying."

Canada

A1 Team Canada racers James Hinchcliffe and Daniel Morad made their respective debuts on the Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit in the United Kingdom Friday as the tenth and final round of the 2007-08 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport got underway at the renowned Kent track.

Morad wracked up 21 laps on the 2.62-mile circuit in the morning's ‘Rookie-Only' session, his best a 1m16.102s – good for ninth on the timesheets, before the 18-year-old handed over to fellow Toronto-native James Hinchcliffe for the rest of the event. Hinchcliffe logged 23 tours in the afternoon's hour long practice session, the 21-year-old back in the A1GP saddle for the first time since the second round of the current season last October in the Czech Republic.

While he placed 17th from the 22 nations entered, with a quickest lap of 1m16.257s, the Canadian worked on building his track knowledge and re-acclimatizing himself to the 550bhp A1GP car. Great Britain's Robbie Kerr, an A1GP winner at Brands Hatch last season, delighted the home crowd with the fastest practice lap, a turn of 1m14.891s.

"My first day back was a bit of a baptism of fire," Hinchcliffe said. "It's a challenging circuit and obviously I haven't been in this car since October so there was a bit of reacquainting going on. That said, things slowly came to us over the session and at the end of the day our position on the time chart doesn't look great but it's not a true reflection on our pace. I actually don't think we're that far off the front-running pace. There's definitely more to come from both me and the car and I'm looking forward to a good day tomorrow!'

"There was quite a bit of traffic out there this morning," reflected Morad after his final rookie outing of the season. "I got caught up in a bit of it in the first session and just as I managed to find a decent gap the checkered flag came out. We continued to make adjustments to the car throughout the session. The car was great on some parts of the track and not so great on others so there's room for improvement. I really liked the track, it's not too dissimilar from Mosport back home with lots of fast corners, my kind of circuit!"

Team Manager Simon Cayzer commented; "This morning was pretty straightforward with Daniel doing a solid job providing us with the required feedback. We knew the first session back with James would be a case of dialing back-in. We know the areas that need to be addressed and we'll work on that tonight with him. Really, as James alluded to, we're in a stronger position than the times perhaps reflect and with a bit more track time we'll be up there!"

France

Today, Friday, A1 Team France began preparing for the 2 races on the Brands Hatch circuit in England, the final round of the 2007/2008 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport. Nicolas Prost set the 11th-quickest time of the rookie drivers, and then handed over to Franck Montagny for the final run. Franck set the 10th-fastest time only 0.536s off the best time of the day. The gaps between the cars are tiny and the drivers in 2nd to 11th places are grouped in less than 0.4 seconds!

In these conditions, the team is feeling quietly optimistic for tomorrow. Thanks to the work carried out today it reckons that it will be among the front-runners in qualifying.

Olivier Panis, sporting director: "Today, we were working on fine-tuning the car's set-up on a track that Franck doesn't know. We still have a little more to do: above all we have to improve our performance in the first sector, but overall we're happy with Friday's results."