12/04/2008
NEWS STORY
A1 Team France topped the time sheets in this morning's third and final official practice session at the Shanghai International Circuit ahead of qualifying for the A1GP Shanghai, China this afternoon.
A1GP new boy, France's Franck Montagny, was strong throughout final practice this morning and set the fastest lap time overall on new tyres with 15 minutes of the session remaining. Montagny's breathtaking lap of 1m35.470s knocked current title leader Switzerland's Neel Jani, who was running on used tyres, off the top spot, which he had held for the majority of the 50-minute session.
Second-placed Switzerland was closely followed by Italy's Edoardo Piscopo in third, who, like France, had the benefit of running on fresh tyres, while last year's Shanghai Feature race winner, New Zealand's Jonny Reid, set the fourth fastest time overall.
Great Britain's Robbie Kerr ended the session in a strong fifth position, followed by Portugal's Filipe Albuquerque in sixth, who was the man to beat around the 4.6km state-of-the-art circuit yesterday.
Canada's Robert Wickens, who arrived at the circuit on Friday afternoon straight from Barcelona, where he had been carrying out testing duties for the World Series by Renault, steadily improved throughout the session to finish seventh overall.
Michael Ammermüller was eighth quickest in the German car followed by India's Narain Karthikeyan and home nation China's Congfu Cheng in ninth and tenth positions respectively.