Australia
In the heat of the early afternoon Ash Walsh took his A1 Team Australia car out onto the track for his and the car's very first time to learn as quick as he could, this legendary race track in the Gauteng District. Walsh impressed early into the session taking his car to the limit into some of the fastest corners on the A1GP calendar. After some adjustments to the brakes the session was trouble free with Walsh securing the fastest time in Sector 1 from the entire grid on track in his third Rookie session this season.
After an early opportunity in the Ferrari 599 GTB Safety Car, completing two laps on my own hosted by our own A1GP 'SC' driver James McAlpine; I can understand the stress on the driver at speed over a long period on the Kyalami track.
Ash Walsh 4th Rookies 1 1:34.001: "It was a great experience. I made a slow start to learn the track but the tyres were going off faster than I had expected so I took more care in the faster corners. The track is very quick and the car was fantastic, I really enjoyed it today setting a fast time plus keeping the car in perfect shape for John who had only 20 minutes to prepare for his first time on track"
The second practice was Martin's job to start learning the track, its intricate corners, and a fast drop like Eau Rouge into a rapid rise to a blind corner with sun in his eyes. The biggest problem was picking the best braking markers before another roller coaster downhill run into the slow chicane and then onto pit straight.
Tyre wear was critical as were the brakes which lead Rob Arnott the Team Chief Engineer to call a change to the front dampers to improve the front end balance. As the clock was running John Martin had nine minutes to sort his car out do some fast times. He did just that and in the session finished 8th with a time of 1:31.983 that being 1.167 seconds off the lead car.
John Martin: "The track is awesome and quick at almost every part, it doesn't matter where you are, and the only moment where you slow the car is the last chicane. When you come up over the top of the hill and the sun is right in your eyes, you just hold the line and land your car and then straight on the gas. Sensational place and we have a good car for the rest of this weekend"
Alan Jones, Seatholder: "Ash did a good job at the start; he kept the car on the track at all times and did exactly what we had asked of him beforehand. It was good to see him fastest overall in the first sector, that's certainly given him a lot more experience and confidence. A good Rookie session today. John had a great session as well with a 1:31 coming close to the top three. There were some critical changes made to his car for tomorrow to improve the qualifying assault."
France
Today, A1 Team France took part in practice for the 2 races in the fifth round of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport Championship on the Kyalami circuit in the Gauteng province in South Africa.
Due to delays because of a logistics problem the cars arrived at the track very early this morning. The organisers decided to revise the timetable to give the teams the most time possible to prepare their cars. The result was a rookie session and a single free practice.
Despite the limited track time A1 Team France ran through its technical programme and got the most out of every kilometre covered. Nicolas Prost topped the time sheets in the rookie session. He then had a set of tyres at his disposal that had already been used, so he was unable to match the pace of the cars that went out on new tyres a few minutes later. He set the eleventh time in the free session, a position that gives no cause for worry, because of the special conditions in which the first da y unfolded.
Olivier Panis, sporting director: "First of all, I'd like to congratulate the whole team who did a great job getting the car ready so quickly. Their professionalism enabled us to run more than our rivals and to collect a lot of very useful information. This morning, Nicolas showed that he was on the pace. The modifications to the set-up that we're going to make between now and tomorrow will enable us to gain more speed, so we're pretty optimistic!"
Nicolas Prost: "It's not been an ideal first day, but even so we're not worried. I was not very well seated in the car as the late arrival of the equipment prevented us from moulding my seat properly before the first practice session. Tomorrow, however, I'll have a made-to-measure seat and that'll make life a whole lot easier! We ran through a range of set-ups that didn't go off quite as we'd hoped. So we know what we have to do to up the pace in free practice and qualifying tomorrow."
Lebanon
Daniel Morad and A1 Team Lebanon set the pace at the fifth round of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport in Kyalami, South Africa, posting the quickest lap of the nations out on track today.
The 18-year-old driver loved the challenge of this circuit and his passion translated into a very quick lap which his rival nations were unable to beat. "It's awesome here," said Morad. "The track is definitely my favourite of all-time, especially when I'm topping the timesheets.
"The team did a great job to have the car ready for me and although we weren't able to be out for the whole practice session, we were able to start to prepare for the races tomorrow."
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