30/01/2008
NEWS STORY
For the second stop of the Australasian leg of the 2007/08 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport, A1 Team Brasil will be in action at the Eastern Creek Raceway, near Sydney, in Australia this weekend. Sergio Jimenez (right) will once again lead the charge for the team, with Clemente Jr fulfilling the rookie driver role.
As the series reaches the half-way point, A1 Team Brasil sit in 11th place in the championship with 27 points. After Sergio's strong sixth place finish last time out in Taupo, the team is just one point adrift of Teams India and China, and the aim for the Eastern Creek race is to score a good points haul to elevate the team in the championship.
Both Sergio and Clemente will be newcomers to the 2.4 mile Eastern Creek circuit and the weekend will kick off with Clemente taking part in the 50-minute rookie practice session on Friday morning. He will then hand over the reins to Sergio who will participate in the remaining two practice sessions before Saturday afternoon's qualifying, in preparation for Sunday's races.
Sergio Jimenez: The plan for Australia is to have some stronger practice sessions and go into qualifying with a good car. What we saw in New Zealand, again, is that we have a good pace, we just need to find the right car to qualify in the top four or five and then we can be fighting for podiums at every race. I need to narrow the gap to the drivers that have the advantage of already knowing the track and how to use their new tyres and I will be working hard to achieve that next
weekend.
Clemente Jr: My first weekend as rookie in New Zealand was a very good experience and now Im looking forward to Eastern Creek because I know more about the car and the team. I need to learn the circuit and then I want to push harder to improve my result in the rookie practice sessions.
Emerson Fittipaldi, Team Principal: We didn't qualify in New Zealand where we should have been and the car was out of balance so what we need to work on in Australia is getting a good qualifying result. We belong in the top five qualifiers, and Sergio and the team are capable of that. I'm very happy with the team's work this season but now we need to be qualifying at the top and that's what I'm looking for in Australia.