Kyalami: Team Switzerland Friday notes

Neel Jani not unhappy in spite of 7th place

Emphasis on set-up work on first day at Kyalami

The Swiss A1GP team ended up seventh in the first practice session at the South-African race track of Kyalami near Johannesburg. Neither team principal Max Welti nor driver Neel Jani are worried because of the relatively poor result. They know that much more can be achieved with an appropriate set-up of the car.

"Admittedly, we are not yet where we want to be", Max Welti reported. "Although we usually are in a top position on the first day already, nobody is letting the spirit down here. In the final outing, the set-up wasn't right. Otherwise, we surely would have been further up front. It also has to be considered that Lebanon and Germany have set their times with new or almost new tyres."

Neel Jani has a similar opinion of the situation: "After I had been fastest for a while, I dropped back a little bit, because we tried some things on the car, which turned out not to be the right direction. In first practice, it is not in the least about getting experience for qualifying and the races. The track suits me well. At some places, it is really fast, but it also provides some difficulties."

Alexandre Imperatori had to find out that there are some tricky parts at Kyalami. In the rookie practice session, he lost control of his car in the very fast, wide right-hand turn 4. No damage was found on the car, so that Neel Jani was able to take over the car without any problems for the subsequent practice session.

The rookie practice session started with a 80 minutes' delay, because most teams hadn't been able to get the equipment ready, which had only arrived in South Africa on Thursday. Still, some drivers had to miss out on the session. For five teams, even the first regular practice session came too early: the cars of Brazil, China, Great Britain, Mexico and the USA remained in the pit box on Friday.

-credit: switzerland