28/08/2007
NEWS STORY
A1 Team Great Britain laid down a marker for the new A1GP World Cup of Motorsport season today at Silverstone, completing over 100 trouble free laps and posting the third fastest time overall. The test was the first competitive outing for the team since scoring victory in the sprint and second place in the feature race at Brands Hatch last season. Newly confirmed rookie Oliver Turvey was on driving duty for the morning session and immediately impressed the team with his consistency and high quality of feedback. The 20 year old had been relishing the prospect of getting back behind the wheel of the Team GBR car and acclimatised himself to the 500bhp A1GP car before attempting some quicker laps on towards the end of the session. He set his best lap time of 1:12.287 on the 49th of his 52 laps, a fact made more impressive by the fact he was running on old tyres.
Oliver Jarvis took over for the afternoon and the 23 year old was immediately in amongst the pacesetters. He topped the afternoon timesheets until a last gasp effort from Team South Africa pushed him down to second by just 0.075s. Jarvis completed 51 laps as the team worked through a structured programme in preparation for the start of the new A1GP season. Robbie Kerr was in attendance at the test today and will take over driving duties tomorrow.
Oliver Turvey: "It was great to get back in the A1GP car having last driven it in Shanghai back in April. I got a lot more running in the car this morning than before, but unfortunately we only ran on old tyres. However I did get my best time towards the end of the session, even though the tyres were at there worst. Overall I'm pretty pleased - I think I improved a lot with the car and got more confident, which is the main aim".
Oliver Jarvis: "Overall we're happy with today's test. Oliver Turvey drove well in the morning setting some decent times on old tyres and providing good feedback before handing over to me. We made good progress in the afternoon, and I'm sure we could have set quicker lap times if it weren't for the traffic, particularly in sector 3. The test is always a good measure of teams' potential competitiveness and it's therefore fantastic to be up at the front, it isn't the all important factor though as all our focus is on Zandvoort and the season ahead".