A1GP

A1 teams ready to race

After two and a half days of testing at the Paul Ricard HTT Track, all 20 national A1 Teams taking part in the Series' biggest ever test session are ready for the World Cup of Motorsport's opening round at Brands Hatch, Great Britain in just under ...

Edited: Sep 2, 2005, 2:43 AM

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After two and a half days of testing at the Paul Ricard HTT Track, all 20 national A1 Teams taking part in the Series' biggest ever test session are ready for the World Cup of Motorsport's opening round at Brands Hatch, Great Britain in just under one month's time. Over 16,000km (over 10,000 miles) were covered over the course of the test session, during 16 hours of track action.

Today's fastest lap time was recorded by A1 Team Ireland driver Ralph Firman following two day's working on the set-up of the car. Mark Kershaw, A1 Team Ireland Franchise Principal said, 'We've had a great test, working on the set up of the car and setting the quickest time this morning. We're really pleased the way the car has gone today, it hasn't given us any problems, things are looking good for the first race. The timings are very close, all the teams are within a couple of tenths of each other, so the races are going to be very competitive. But we're glad to be here and proud to be representing Ireland.'

A1 drivers are also looking forward to the Series' first race. 'We had a lot of work to do in terms of set-up to make the car quicker and today we did long runs with a lot of fuel to see how the car reacted to heavy fuel loads, because the first race is coming soon. This was a good test for us - the mechanics and the engineers - we all work very well together and I'm very optimistic for the first race' said Jos Verstappen, driver for A1 Team Netherlands.

A1 Grand Prix's Global Operations Manager, John Wickham commented on the success of the test session saying: 'I'm impressed with the professionalism displayed by all of the teams here at Paul Ricard. We've continued in the same direction as at Silverstone, lots of track time with very few interruptions and reliability that is exceptional. I think the teams that are here now know their cars well and should be confident about what will happen at the first race at Brands Hatch.'

'We've just closed our second successful team test session and once again the A1 cars have proved to be immensely reliable. I am delighted with the performance of all our teams, particularly as they all managed to shave vital seconds off their lap times throughout the course of the test. The timings were all very close and I'm looking forward to an exciting first race at Brands Hatch' said A1 Grand Prix Founder, President and Chairman, Sheikh Maktoum.

-a1gp-

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