Sepang: Team Germany Friday report

A1 Team Germany heads free practice in Malaysia Willi Weber's A1 Team Germany started round four of the A1 Grand Prix Series in Malaysia in top form: Nominated race driver Nico Hulkenberg topped the leader board in all three of Friday's ...

A1 Team Germany heads free practice in Malaysia

Willi Weber's A1 Team Germany started round four of the A1 Grand Prix Series in Malaysia in top form: Nominated race driver Nico Hulkenberg topped the leader board in all three of Friday's sessions around the Sepang circuit.

During the opening Rookie practice session, reserved exclusively for championship newcomers, the 19-year old young talent from Emmerich set a time of 1m54.311s to give him a 25 thousandth-of-a-second advantage over the South African Adrian Zaugg. In the second session for newcomers, Hulkenberg's 1m54.491s lap gave him an advantage of 0.202 seconds over the Malaysia Fairuz Fauzy. "I completed both sessions on used tyres and got to grips with the circuit layout very quickly", reported the Rhinelander.

At the beginning of the following free practice session, in which every competitor is allowed to drive, A1 Team Germany fitted new slicks to the powerful 520 hp monoposto race car. On the second of his ten laps, Hulkenberg recorded a best time of 1m51.789s, 1.197 seconds clear of the nearest rival Congfu Cheng from China. As a result, the squad managed by Willi Weber remained unbeaten on Friday.

"Obviously, the track was very dirty at the start of the day. As the circuit cleaned up we concentrated on fine-tuning the set-up", explained Hulkenberg. "David Sears' race team gave me a well-prepared car and arrived at an excellent set-up. It's good to be at the front on Friday, however, in spite of the good lap time we shouldn't get too excited and must concentrate on the forthcoming sessions."

The German team, along with its 21 opponents in the field, received a foretaste of the peculiar Malaysian weather conditions during the final free practice. After half-an-hour a flash-flood caused by monsoon rain briefly submerged the 5.542 kilometre circuit. However, it would not have made much sense to test a rain set-up -- the circuit had dried out again after only ten minutes. The grid formation for the first of Sunday's two races is determined on Saturday in the four-part qualifying session.