Eastern Creek: Teams nominate qualifying drivers

A1GP SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - DRIVERS NOMINATED FOR QUALIFYING Eastern Creek, Australia - A1 Team Australia has solved its set up problems of yesterday, making good headway towards a strong home performance in the last official practice session for the ...

A1GP SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - DRIVERS NOMINATED FOR QUALIFYING

Eastern Creek, Australia - A1 Team Australia has solved its set up problems of yesterday, making good headway towards a strong home performance in the last official practice session for the A1GP Sydney, Australia. The team moved up from twelfth place on the timing sheet yesterday to sixth place this morning, despite an earlier hiccup when refuelling which saw the nozzle burst and driver, Karl Reindler sprayed with fuel.

A1 Team Germany took over from New Zealand at the top of the time sheets with Great Britain slotting into second place ahead of New Zealand. A1 Team Great Britain were delighted with this result having made suspension changes over night which seemed to do the trick, giving them the biggest jump up the time sheets from 13th place yesterday afternoon to second today.

The same could not be said for Italy and Malaysia as they dropped down to 20th and 21st respectively. A1 Team Malaysia's driver, Alex Yoong, was very frustrated saying that the car seemed to have the wrong set up for the track. On top of this, the master switch failed and the electronics cut out.

With the A1GP engines having reached the 250,000 kilometre mark this weekend after 18 months of racing, many of the teams are changing them. New Zealand was due to change their engine at the end of this race meeting but in fact changed it over night. Canada also has a new engine this weekend, but installed it before the start of yesterday's practice sessions. The life of an A1GP engine is 3,500km, so the teams make this change once a year - usually mid-season.

The teams now have to decide on their final set up before qualifying for the Sprint race begins at 14.15 this afternoon. Qualifying consists of four 15 minute sessions with a five minute break between each. Only one driver per A1 Team is allowed to take part in Qualifying and that driver must have completed at least three timed laps in an Official Practice session. Each driver is limited to three laps - effectively one "flying lap" - per session and must record at least two times, an aggregate of which will determine that A1 Team's position on the grid for Sunday's Sprint race. The grid for the Feature race will be determined by the outcome of the Sprint race.

<pre> Nominated drivers for Qualifying - A1GP Sydney, Australia

A1 Team         Driver
Australia       Karl Reindler
Brazil          Tuka Rocha
Canada          James Hinchcliffe
China           Ho-Pin Tung
Czech Republic  Tomas Enge
France          Loic Duval
Germany         Nico Hulkenberg
Great Britain   Robbie Kerr
India           Parthiva Sureshwaren
Indonesi        Ananda Mikola
Ireland         Richard Lyons
Italy           Enrico Toccacelo
Lebanon         Alex Khateeb
Malaysia        Alex Yoong
Mexico          Salvador Duran
Netherlands     Jeroen Bleekemolen
New Zealand     Jonny Reid
Pakistan        Nur Ali
Singapore       Christian Murchison
South Africa    Alan van der Werwe
Switzerland     Sebastien Buemi
USA             Phil Giebler