A1GP

Dubai: Team Japan Friday report

Dubai Autodrome (Dubai). It was a foggy start to the race weekend in Dubai today with the sun just managing to burn through the fog in time for when the first A1 cars rolled out on the track. Two extra test sessions were scheduled in the morning and ...

Published: Dec 13, 2005, 4:52 PM

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Dubai Autodrome (Dubai). It was a foggy start to the race weekend in Dubai today with the sun just managing to burn through the fog in time for when the first A1 cars rolled out on the track. Two extra test sessions were scheduled in the morning and Japanese young gun Hayanari Shimoda quickly got up to speed in the A1 Team Japan car and clocked 12th quickest time in both morning sessions. As the day went on, Hayanari fine-tuned his racing lines and could improve his lap times to end up 10th and 6th quickest in the afternoon.

Hayanari Shimoda:

As more rubber went down on the track, my lap times improved. I'm pleased with the car and the team has helped me find a good balance which works well here as it's especially important to have the right set-up on a technical demanding circuit like Dubai Autodrome. I have a slight understeer in some corners and oversteer in others, but we are going to try and change that for tomorrow. Here, it's how you enter the first corner in one of the many sections of the Dubai circuit that determines if the rest of the section is going to flow as well. I hope we can carry on tomorrow as we did today and get a good starting position for the grid on Sunday.

Malcolm Swetnam (Team Manager, A1 Team Japan):

Hayanari has done a superb job today and has steadily improved his times and position in each of the four sessions. It's not an easy circuit but Hayanari has worked well with the team to find a set-up that works. We tried to send him out a bit later in the third session as the sand around here made the track very dirty and we hoped it would have cleared a bit to save our tyres, but unfortunately it didn't make any difference because of the breeze we had today. I think I speak for the whole team when I say that we would be very pleased to see Hayanari in a point scoring position on Sunday.

-team japan-

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