Brazil

A1 Team Brazil was on track today as preparations began for round three of the 2008/09 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport at the Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia. Felipe Guimarães was on duty for the Brazilian squad, using all available practice time as he is still eligible for the rookie sessions.

Felipe had his first taste of the Sepang track this morning in the two half hour rookie practice. The aim of the session was for the 17-year-old Brazilian to get to grips with the circuit, and to begin work on set-up on Brazil's A1GP Powered by Ferrari car. Unfortunately the team suffered electrical problems which blighted progress and limited Felipe to just seven laps in the first session.

In the afternoon's one hour practice, which saw all the nominated race drivers take to the track, Felipe headed out fourteen minutes into the session. Throughout the hour he completed 14 laps of testing, but the team struggled and is now investigating a potential technical problem which affected the practice performance.

Tomorrow will see all the teams complete one final hour of practice in the morning, before the all important qualifying sessions in the afternoon, which will determine the grid line-up for Sunday's sprint and feature races.

Felipe Guimarães: "This morning I really didn't get to run because of the problems so the first time I ran really was this afternoon. Unfortunately we have a problem, which we also experienced at the Silverstone test, with a big oversteer issue after braking. There isn't anything wrong with our set-up and we have tried several things to solve it without a resolution so we are of the thinking now that there is a problem with the car itself. We are looking into every area tonight and I hope things will be better for us tomorrow."

Fernando Paiva, Team Principal: "We lost a lot of time with the electrical problem in the rookie session and had more problems this afternoon. We're currently looking into the car in great detail as we believe there is a fundamental issue – we did not have set-up problems so we are trying to find the reason that we struggled. Hopefully this can all be resolved for tomorrow."

France

Today, A1 Team France began its Malaysian weekend on the Sepang circuit, where the 3rd round of the 2008-09 A1 World Cup of Motorsport Championship is taking place, in the best possible fashion.

Nicolas Prost set the quickest time in the 2 rookie sessions. The 4-times world champion's son, who drove the car at Chengdu 2 weeks ago, began the task of setting up the A1 single-seater.

Loïc Duval took over for the first free session for his first drive in the Ferrari-designed car on a dry track. He soon got to grips with it and was among the front-runners all session. He finished fourth overall despite a clutch problem that prevented him from setting the fastest time at the end of the session. It bodes well for the next 2 days.

Olivier Panis, sporting director: "We've made a great start to our weekend, with the best lap of Nicolas in the rookie session. The quality of his technical feedback helped us to progress in our programme right f rom the word go, which is very important. Loïc was soon on the pace. A few minor technical glitches prevented him from getting as much track time as we'd have liked, so we've still got a few more things to evaluate during the second free session. For the moment everything's under control!"

Loïc Duval, driver: "I couldn't wait to drive the new A1 GP car on a dry track for the first time. And I wasn't disappointed! The grip's good and the car's very quick. The high temperature caused a few problems under braking, but we've solved them. Clutch glitches in the closing minutes prevented me from setting the quickest time. Overall we're happy with our level of performance. Both driver and car still have to find a little more speed! All very positive really."

Nicolas Prost, driver: "The two rookie sessions went off well and I got to grips with the track very quickly. The Sepang circuit's got nothing in common with Chengdu, and we were able to start our techni cal programme right away. I think we've found some good set-ups. We're as competitive as ever and we should be able to fight at the front again this weekend."

Great Britain

A1 Team Great Britain made a good start to its preparations for the third round of the 2008/09 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport today, with Danny Watts setting the quickest time in the first rookie practice session and then improving on that to take the fastest lap of the weekend so far in the afternoon's one-hour practice at the Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia.

Danny hit the track this morning for the rookie practice session, which is split into two half hour segments. The British squad were on the pace straight away but Danny was still able to improve, setting his fastest lap of the session on the ninth of his 11 laps with a time of 1:51.096, putting him at the top of the timesheets. In the second rookie half hour, he set a lap two tenths slower than his segment one time, putting him third quickest of the session, with France and New Zealand ahead.