A1GP

Brands Hatch: Team India Saturday report

India qualify fifth for A1GP finale Narain Karthikeyan took part in final practice and qualifying for the A1GP Brands Hatch today, at the UK round of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport. Returning to one of his favourite tracks, Karthikeyan has been ...

Published: Apr 29, 2007, 4:57 AM

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India qualify fifth for A1GP finale Narain Karthikeyan took part in final practice and qualifying for the A1GP Brands Hatch today, at the UK round of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport.

Returning to one of his favourite tracks, Karthikeyan has been quick in all sessions, and looked to secure fourth place on the grid until his final flying lap was hampered by a slowing car. India will now the Sprint race from fifth on the grid. Karthikeyan was on the pace from the first practice session yesterday, setting the second quickest time of the day, with only the car of home team Great Britain able to beat his best time. In this morning's final practice session, India recorded the fifth fastest time, after a number of teams opted to use fresh tyres while Karthikeyan conserved his supply for the afternoon's qualifying session.

Karthikeyan was disappointed with today's qualifying session commenting, "I'm not really happy with how it went in qualifying, we should be further up the grid. I was blocked by France on the last lap; we were a minimum P4, maybe even P3 before that. We still need to find a couple of tenths in the car, and I think if we had been doing this all season as a team, we would be right up there. Certainly Great Britain has found something in their car or Robbie [Kerr] has, they certainly put in a great qualifying lap to take pole.

"I think the weather's going to play a big part tomorrow, the forecast doesn't look very promising and I've heard there's a good chance of rain, which will make the race even more entertaining. It could also be my first time driving this car in the wet, so it's going to be interesting. We've found a pretty decent set up this weekend, we just need to be consistent and get a podium, that's the aim tomorrow."

A1 Team Seatholder Yohann Setna reflected on the day, saying "We'll start tomorrow in P5, so Narain has equalled our best ever qualifying performance. We could have been a little bit faster but we got very badly blocked by the French in the last qualifying segment. I think we could have done another 1.14.7 which could have put us third on the grid for the Sprint race. But generally it was a good performance, we have a great set up for the race and the car works well on old tyres so I'm pleased."

A1 Team India will return to the track for the final race day in the 2006/07 season tomorrow, as the 22 national cars line up for a fantastic season finale. The 20 minute Sprint race will kick off at 11.00, the finishing positions of which will set the start grid for the afternoon's Feature race.

Credit: team india

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