15/12/2007
NEWS STORY
Defending champion A1 Team Germany qualified in pole position for tomorrow morning's Sprint race at the inaugural Huatai A1GP Zhuhai, China while the Feature race will be led off the grid by current championship leader Switzerland.
Sprint race qualifying
German rookie Michael Ammermuller set the fastest lap during the second 15-minute qualifying segment to snatch pole position for tomorrow morning's Sprint race from Ireland's Adam Carroll, who was quickest around the 4.3km Chinese circuit in Q1.
Switzerland's Neel Jani will line up alongside Germany on the front row, after a superb last lap charge during Q2 demoted Ireland's Adam Carroll and China's CongFu Cheng to third and fourth place respectively. Great Britain's Oliver Jarvis and Czech Republic's Tomas Enge will line up on the third row of the grid in fifth and sixth place respectively.
Feature race qualifying
Switzerland's Neel Jani went one better in the final qualifying segment to secure pole for the Feature race ahead of GBR's Oliver Jarvis who will line up alongside him on the front row.
India's Narain Karthikeyan put in a sensational lap in Q4 to secure third position on the grid, closely followed by France's Loic Duval who will start from fourth. Germany took the fifth spot while home nation China's CongFu Cheng continued to impress the home fans by qualifying in sixth position and achieving China's best combined qualifying performance to date.
Germany's Michael Ammermüller was delighted with his first pole position in only his second A1GP appearance and is looking forward to taking on the challenging Zhuhai circuit tomorrow morning: 'We did a good job to get first place in qualifying and it's a great result for the whole team. We were struggling a bit in free practice but then we got a really good car and we were quite dominant in the first qualifying. The track got a bit worse towards the end and we weren't in the top three but still I think it's a good result. It's better to be first in the first race because it's a short race and quite difficult to overtake and in the second race it's all about strategy and anything is possible.'
Sepang double race winner Neel Jani, who has been struggling with brake problems on the Swiss car, was pleased with his team's qualifying performance: 'We had another great qualifying – second for the Sprint race and first for the Feature race - but it's very tight this time and all very close, every little mistake can put you three spots back. I'm very pleased as yesterday we had a lot of brake problems so the team did a great job to get it solved for today.'
Great Britain's Oliver Jarvis will start both the Sprint and Feature races from second on the grid. The 23-year-old said: 'The free practice and qualifying sessions have been pretty tough. Like Neel said, the track adheres to very close times so a small mistake can make a big difference. It's also very difficult to get a full lap together, there's a lot of heavy braking zones and it's very easy to make a mistake. We've struggled a little bit so far but hopefully we can have very good races and score a lot of points.'
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