Brno: Team Canada Friday report

A1 Team Canada on track in Brno practice Brno, Czech Republic (October 06, 2006) -- A1 Team Canada had a subdued start to Round 2 of the 2006-07 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport, hosted at the Auto Motodrom, Bruno in the Czech Republic, 6th-8th ...

A1 Team Canada on track in Brno practice

Brno, Czech Republic (October 06, 2006) -- A1 Team Canada had a subdued start to Round 2 of the 2006-07 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport, hosted at the Auto Motodrom, Bruno in the Czech Republic, 6th-8th October, as Vancouver's Sean McIntosh (21) and Toronto's James Hinchcliffe (19) both spent time behind the wheel of A1 Team Canada's entry in Friday practice.

Making his A1GP return, having led the Canadian team to victory in his last start in Indonesia (Round 8) in the inaugural season of the nation versus nation series, Sean McIntosh's run in the hour-long practice session yielded little in terms of outright pace but allowed the World Series by Renault front-runner the opportunity to dial back into the 550bhp V8-powered A1GP car.

James Hinchcliffe was left a little frustrated with his outing in the earlier rookie session. The Champ Car Atlantic Championship race winner, who made his competitive debut for A1 Team Canada in last weekend's opening round in Holland, placing 8th and 13th respectively in the Sprint and Feature races, reveled in the sweeping layout of the 14 turn, 5.41km Brno circuit but didn't quite find a workable set-up to propel the Canadian entry further up the running order before handing over to McIntosh.

Sean McIntosh:
"We set our fastest lap time pretty late in the session. Friday's one of those days where you have the chance to see where you're at and go from there. We've got some things to work on, I haven't been here before where as some of the other drivers have and they set their quick times on new tires earlier in the session than I was able to. We just need to get our heads down and work on improving things on the car for tomorrow."

James Hinchcliffe:
"It was a bit of a disappointing session it's safe to say. Obviously we weren't quite up to speed and there were a few issues with the car. When you go out right away and the car's not there it's really hard to find the time in the session. I'm hoping Sean will be able to be more competitive in the second run to move the team on ahead of tomorrow's qualifying. I really like the track here at Brno unfortunately it just wasn't suiting us in that session."